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Citizens Made and Remade 

An Interpretation of the Significance and 
Influence of George Junior Republics 



BY 

WILLIAM R. GEORGE 

AND 

LYMAN BEECHER STOWE 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 



HVglfe 



COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY WILLIAM R. GEORGE AND LYMAN BEECHER STOWE 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Published October igi2 






PREFACE 

In the preparation of this book Mr. George 
has for the most part provided the data and 
the ideas while I have furnished the method 
and style of their presentation. As every 
one knows, Mr. George was the originator 
of the Junior Republic idea and the founder 
of the original Republic at Freeville, New 
York. He is now doing a nation-wide work 
as National Director of the National Asso- 
ciation of Junior Republics, which is under- 
taking to correlate the work of the exist- 
ing and widely separated Republics and 
which aims to establish at least one such 
community in every State in the Union. 
A similar community has been established 
in England which will be more or less 
closely affiliated with the American work. 

Not long after the founding of the Re- 
public at Freeville, a number of educational 
leaders awoke to the fact that the princi- 
ples of self-government successfully used 
there both could and should be applied to 
schools in general and to public schools in 



PREFACE 

particular. It was through this latter 
group that I became interested and later 
an active participant in the self-govern- 
ment movement as Secretary of the School 
Citizens' Committee. The object of this 
organization is to advocate pupil self- 
government, or pupil participation in the 
government, as an essential of practical 
training for citizenship in schools and insti- 
tutions; in short, wherever boys and girls 
are gathered together either for instruction 
or reformation. In that portion of the book 
treating self-government in schools and in- 
stitutions the data are mine. 

As Secretary of the National Associa- 
tion of Junior Republics I have come into 
intimate association with Mr. George and 
his work, and hence was invited by him to 
collaborate in the preparation of this book* 
Mr. George originated exclusively the new 
penal method with which the book con- 
cludes. I wish to state that almost every 
word of this book was written by me and 
that Mr. George's only share in those por- 
tions which present him personally in a 
favorable light was to protest against their 
inclusion. 

VI 



PREFACE 

The book does not seek to be a history 
or even an adequate account of Junior 
Republics 1 or of School Republics, or of 
the self-government movement in general, 
but rather an interpretation of the real 
meaning and significance of all such train- 
ing, with an outline of a practical method 
by which principles, already proved not- 
ably successful in the reformation of boys 
and girls, may be applied to law-breaking 
adults. 

It is our conviction that through the 
application of these principles, and thus 
only, can a citizenship be trained for the 
future such as will adequately preserve 
and develop the highest ideals of our na- 
tion. We shall feel amply repaid for our 
effort if, in any degree, we succeed in trans- 
mitting to others this conviction. 

Lyman Beecher Stowe. 

New York City 
June 28, 1912 



1 Mr. George has already written the history of the Junior 
Republic in his book entitled The Junior Republic, published 
by D. Appleton and Company. 



CONTENTS 

I. Mr. George Studies the Street Boy 

at Close Range .... 1 

II. Success through Failure | . . 30 

III. A New Old Idea . . . .59 

IV. A Republic for Bad Boys . . 65 
V. The Republic Becomes a Democracy 91 

VI. Girl Citizens 118 

VII. Every Boy Like Every Other . 139 

VIII. Character through Responsibility 163 

IX. Selp-Government in Schools and 

Institutions 184 

X. The World's Workers . . . 220 

XI. Citizens Remade . 233 

XII. A Square Deal for Democracy . 259 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Landscape View of the Republic Frontispiece 

Digging the Famous Big Ditch • . ,30 

A Town Meeting ...... 52 

A Court Session 52 

Porch op the Republic Inn . . . .70 

living-room of the republic inn . . .70 

At Work in the Bakery 134 

Doing Business at the Store .... 134 

Cultivating New Land ..... 176 

On the Farm ....... 176 

At Work in the Carpenter Shop . . . 192 

Modern Press for Printing Magazine and 
Other Work 192 

Living-Room, Boys' Cottage .... 248 

Dining-Room, Girls' Cottage . . . .248 



Citizens Made and Remade 



CHAPTER I 

MR. GEORGE STUDIES THE STREET BOY AT 
CLOSE RANGE 

By Lyman Beecheb Stowe x 

While never a conventional man, William 
R. George started his career with a con- 
ventional assortment of stock conceptions 
regarding society and social relations in 
general. Like most men he accepted the 
current ideas on such subjects at their face 
value. But unlike most men he then pro- 
ceeded to test their value by practical 
experiments. 

He believed that society was divided 
into three more or less distinct classes. 
The lower, made up of the shiftless and 
the depraved; the middle, composed of the 
plain and decent people; and the upper 

1 Because of necessity it deals so largely with him personally, 
Mr. George preferred to have no share either in the preparation 
of or the responsibility for this chapter. L. B. S. 

1 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

class, represented by the well-to-do and 
the well-born. He did not believe that 
these class barriers were impassable except 
that a person born in the upper class, what- 
ever his personal worthlessness, could never 
quite sink to the lowest class. On the other 
hand, he did believe that a person born in 
the lowest class might, with brains and 
money, rise into the highest. With all his 
heart he believed that every normal boy, 
no matter how sordid the conditions into 
which he was born, had in him latent 
possibilities which if properly fostered 
could and would place him in the highest 
and most honorable social ranks. This 
optimistic conviction of the dominance of 
environment over heredity, which was the 
one point where his beliefs differed materi- 
ally from those commonly held, has formed 
the working hypothesis of all his social 
activities. He believed the lawbreaker 
ought to be punished; reformed if possible, 
but never at the expense of merited pun- 
ishment. Just who the lawbreaker was he 
did not stop to analyze. Generally speak- 
ing, he was the man who was caught. He 
was, at any rate, except in the cases of the 

2 



THE STREET BOY AT CLOSE RANGE 

uncaught lawbreakers of which he had 
personal knowledge. 

At an early age Mr. George went into 
business for himself as a maker of jewelry 
cases. As time went on his interest in the 
making of jewelry cases grew less and less, 
while his interest in the making of men grew 
greater and greater. However unfortunate 
this may have been for the jewelry cases 
and for Mr. George's bank account, it was 
emphatically fortunate for the street boys 
of New York. Mr. George was at this time 
living with his parents in an apartment on 
the upper East Side of Manhattan. Here 
he and his mother, through an apparently 
incredible feat of concentration, succeeded 
in making a home for three or four home- 
less boys whom he had picked up in the 
course of his constant knight-errant tours 
into the uttermost penetralia of the worst 
slum districts. He felt these boys should 
in the interest of their own self-respect 
make, at least, some contribution to their 
own support. In casting about for a clean 
and useful occupation for these young lads, 
Mr. George bethought him of his former 
farmer neighbors "up-State" (he and his 

3 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

parents had moved from a farm to the city 
only a few years before), with their abun- 
dance of butter and eggs and the difficulty 
of selling them, and his present city neigh- 
bors with their scarcity of these articles 
and the difficulty of buying them. Here 
was a chance for his boys to do a real 
service and at the same 'time make some 
money. Accordingly he worked out a plan 
by which his former neighbors in the 
country sent down butter and eggs which 
were sold at a reasonable advance to his 
city neighbors. The boys did the selling 
and made the difference between the pur- 
chase and the selling price. Mr. George 
had slips printed stating that these boys 
were his authorized representatives, that 
he, himself, derived no pecuniary gain from 
their activities, and requesting his acquaint- 
ances to give them their patronage. At 
this time Mr. George was a member of a 
local committee of the Charity Organiza- 
tion Society of the city. When one of the 
slips referred to came into the possession 
of the society, he was called to the head 
office and told that his methods were de- 
cidedly irregular. In order to avoid the 

4 



THE STREET BOY AT CLOSE RANGE 

suspicion that some of the money col- 
lected by his boy agents was finding 
its way into his own pocket he should 
organize a society with a board of trustees 
who should see that the accounts were 
properly kept and audited. This Mr. 
George indignantly refused to do. He was 
a free lance and did not propose to be 
bossed by any trustees. Thereupon, Organ- 
ized Charity catalogued him as personally 
honest, but irregular in his methods, and 
hence not fully to be trusted. He was 
requested to resign from the local com- 
mittee of the society and complied with 
great alacrity. This may sound like a 
reflection upon the methods and intelli- 
gence of organized charity. It is not so 
intended. The society was not dealing 
with the well-known founder and leader of 
the Junior Republic movement, but with 
a young and unknown person by the name 
of W. R. George. From their point of view 
there was no reason why he should be 
trusted any further than any other young 
man. There were doubtless many present- 
able young men in the town who would 
have been ready enough to pick up an in- 

5 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

come under the guise of charity. On the 
other hand, Mr. George was absolutely- 
right in his refusal to be saddled with a 
board of trustees. He was scouting far 
ahead of even the vanguard of organized 
society and he could not take a board of 
trustees with him any more than an army 
scout could take a mule train with him. 

Some years later his first experience with 
a board of trustees amply justified this 
instinctive protest against the limitations 
of organization. All this was in the early 
nineties. 

Mr. George's next move was to go into 
one of the toughest districts of the lower 
East Side of Manhattan and there gradu- 
ally transform the dominant street-boy 
gang into what he called a law-and-order 
gang. This he did in this way. A loft in a 
ramshackle old building was hired by a 
friend and fitted up roughly as a clubroom. 
He made friends with some of the leading 
young toughs of the neighborhood and 
gradually took them into his confidence 
and induced them to "hang out" at the 
clubroom instead of the street corners. 
This neighborhood was dominated and 

6 



THE STREET BOY AT CLOSE RANGE 

terrorized over by a notorious gang known 
as the "Graveyard Gang." The inner 
circle of this gang called themselves the 
"Sons of Arrest." No one was eligible to 
the distinction of membership in this inner 
circle until he had been arrested, and he 
who had the greatest number of arrests to 
his credit was the leader of the Sons of 
Arrest and of the whole gang. This gang 
warred upon the neighborhood and the 
police. The peaceful citizens were of course 
their victims. In his first coming to the 
district — when he was reconnoitring with 
a view to starting his club — Mr. George 
had been set upon by the Graveyard Gang 
and stood them off single-handed until the 
police came to his rescue. The stout resist- 
ance which he put up in this encounter 
became a tradition of the locality and doubt- 
less helped him in his later peaceful subju- 
gation of this gang. Boxing became one of 
the leading attractions of this club and Mr, 
George the leading boxer. He had become 
an expert in the art while drill sergeant of 

Company . It had been his original 

ambition to go into the regular army, but 
the rank of sergeant of militia was as far 

7 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

as he went in a military career. That 
was far enough to give him a standing 
with boys which no mere civilian achieve- 
ments could have won for him. Gradually 
his reputation as a boxer spread through 
the neighborhood. His converts and ad- 
mirers boasted that no one could beat him. 
Some scoffers at this new hero with his 
subverting law-and-order notions plotted 
to accomplish his downfall by seeking out 
some fellow who could lick him and then 
arranging a match between them. Finally 
they found their man — a great husky 
brute who had never been beaten and who 
had aspirations for the prize ring. Mr. 
George accepted the challenge with full 
knowledge of the conspiracy which lay 
back of it. It was arranged that the fight 
take place behind closed doors, without 
witnesses, in a back room of the club. 

At the appointed time the combatants 
put on the gloves, went into the room, 
closed and locked the door behind them, 
while the excited followers of each gathered 
around the keyhole. It had been agreed 
that they fight until one or the other asked 
for quarter. For many minutes the eager 

8 



THE STREET BOY AT CLOSE RANGE 

auditors were fascinated by the sounds of 
violent scuffling and quick heavy breathing 
punctuated by the exhilarating thuds of 
well-landed blows. After what seemed a 
very long time to the expectant group 
around the keyhole, the door reopened and 
the contestants came slowly out — pant- 
ing, disheveled, and perspiring. In re- 
sponse to the simultaneous shout, "Who 
won?" Mr. George replied, "Ask him!" 
His opponent said nothing. Immediately 
came the outburst, "Then, youse git back 
in there an' fight it out!" To this Mr. 
George assented with a nod, but his oppo- 
nent flung out, "Any of youse as wants ter 
ken have me gloves. I've had mine an' I 
ain't a-goin' back!!" That settled it. Mr. 
George became and remained undisputed 
champion of the neighborhood. All this 
was when he was in his twenties. 

After this things went more easily for 
him. He was now the recognized leader 
of the new gang. His word was law. He 
appointed his staff and organized his gang 
in a more or less informal military manner. 
He and his staff of young toughs offered 
their services to the police sergeant, who 

9 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

was acting captain in command of the pre- 
cinct, to help suppress lawlessness. The 
sergeant, now Captain Wigand, saw the 
point and at once accepted the offer. He 
not only made an informal alliance with 
Mr. George and his gang, but he secured 
Mr. George's appointment as a special 
police officer so that he might add official 
authority to his moral and physical supre- 
macy. At this time it was Mr. George's 
plan and ambition to continue his work 
along these lines until every gang of every 
neighborhood in New York had been in 
like manner transformed from a law- 
defying into a law-enforcing group. He, 
as commander-in-chief, was to advance 
from district to district, leaving his trusted 
lieutenants in command of the conquered 
locality, and taking with him each time a 
picked company of faithful followers to 
help capture the new territory. Owing to 
the unexpected turn of events which led 
him into his present work, he never fol- 
lowed this plan beyond its initial stage. 

One day after his appointment as a 
special policeman, Mr. George sallied forth 
with the idea of doing a little real police 

10 



THE STREET BOY AT CLOSE RANGE 

work if opportunity offered. Before long 
he came upon a group of boys "shooting 
craps." Now, this was not only against the 
law, but, as he knew from experience, very 
evil in its effects. He said to himself, "I 
hate to humiliate these boys by arrest, but 
there's nothing else to do." So saying, he 
wedged his way into the crowd, saw one boy 
place the money, throw the dice with the 
attendant snap of the fingers, and then 
gather up some coin. This was sufficient 
evidence. He reached over and grabbed 
the offender by the collar. With the 
familiar cry, "Cheese it, the cop!" the 
crowd scampered in every direction. The 
young prisoner straightened up with a 
glance curiously akin to triumph in his 
eyes and inquired pleasantly, "Are youse 
a flatty?" (meaning a detective). Mr. 
George assented. "Den show your tin," 
he demanded, and Mr. George complied 
by displaying his new police badge. "Dat 
settles it. I'll go wid yer," exclaimed the 
young prisoner with an air of bravado. 
"Hey, Jimmie is pinched again!" yelled 
the boys, flocking round, and casting ad- 
miring glances at Jimmie. From that point 

11 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

to the station house it was a triumphal 
procession for Jimmie. A smile of satis- 
faction came into Jimmie's face as they 
passed a group of girls about the young cul- 
prit's age who exclaimed sympathetically, 
"Aw, poor Jimmie !" 

The next morning when Jimmie came 
before the bar of justice his captor put in a 
good word for him with the judge, which 
resulted in his being released on a kind of 
probation. Thereafter Mr. George saw 
him almost daily and the two became very 
good friends. Jimmie was now promoted 
to be leader of his gang, and Mr. George 
found that by arresting him he had been 
the unconscious agent of his elevation to 
that position. He had needed but one more 
arrest to achieve this distinction and his 
new friend had given it to him. 

One day some weeks later, Mr. George 
found Jimmie in a state of deep dejection. 
"Aw, it's all off," said he sadly. "I can't 
be de leader no more. Mickie has just got 
back from de 'ref.' an' jest being pinched 
ain't in it wid doin 5 time. I wish now de 
jedge had give me a bit in de 'ref.' 'stead 
a lettin' me off, 'cause den I 'd had a show, 

12 



THE STREET BOY AT CLOSE RANGE 

but it ain't no use now." Sure enough, 
Jimmie had to step down and triumphant 
Mickie took his place. But Jimmie lived 
to glory in quite other achievements than 
being arrested. 

Captain Wigand has often said that this 
law-and-order gang was of no little aid to 
him in policing his turbulent precinct. Be- 
side many minor renovations they cleaned 
out absolutely both "craps'' and "policy." 
They organized into two squads — one 
known as the "craps" squad and the 
other as the "policy" squad. When the 
lookouts of the "craps" squad sighted a 
game going on in a given street, the squad 
divided into two bands and circled the 
block so as to close in upon the "crap- 
shooters" from both directions. As these 
young law-enforcers were of course without 
police badges and frequently as young or 
younger than the offenders, the "crap- 
shooters " naturally and frequently resisted 
arrest, and many pitched battles resulted 
which slaked the thirst for combat of these 
new recruits to the ranks of law and order. 

The "policy" squad was equally syste- 
matic and relentless in its campaign. They 

13 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

had, of course, more often to deal with 
adults, as the keepers of "policy shops " 
were almost always grown men or women. 
This squad did not do the actual arresting, 
but merely gathered information and evi- 
dence upon which the police acted. " Pol- 
icy/ ' the meanest cheat that ever masquer- 
aded as a game of chance, was sucking the 
lifeblood of the poor of the district. There 
were at times as many as forty "policy 
shops" in a single block. They shifted in 
such a kaleidoscopic fashion from one back 
room to another that it was impossible for 
the police to keep track of them. Unlike 
the more honestly conducted gambling 
games, "policy" is played chiefly by the 
poorest of the poor. To the nearest "pol- 
icy shop" go desperate men and women in 
efforts to ward off starvation by risking 
their last dime. If they win, and their 
chances are at best not better than one in 
one hundred and at worst almost none at 
all, they make a dollar for every cent they 
play. Playing a "gig" with a last coin is 
frequently the final effort in a squalid 
struggle for existence. Spotting "policy 
shops" and the gathering of evidence 

14 



THE STREET BOY AT CLOSE RANGE 

against them was in itself a most fascinat- 
ing game for the boys ; and when such shops 
were "pulled " by the police, that formed 
the spectacular climax of the melodrama 
in which they had been chief actors. Fin- 
ally the "policy" squad had secured the 
closing of every shop in the district except 
one conducted by an old woman of eighty, 
a paralytic and almost blind, whose young 
nephew did the writing for her. Against 
her they secured all necessary evidence, 
but they would not have her place "pulled" 
because of her sex, age, and infirmities. 
Instead, they threatened her, showed her 
that they had her in their power, and 
agreed to withhold from the police the evi- 
dence against her if she would promise 
"to cut it out." She made the promise and 
they saw to it that she kept it. All this the 
boys did, not because it was right, but 
because it was sport and because their 
leader wanted it done. Fortunately right 
acts do not become wrong merely because 
they are done for the love of excitement. 
Had the policy gamblers been wise enough 
to form an alliance with these same boys 
before Mr. George and the police secured 

15 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

their allegiance, they would doubtless have 
served their interests with equal loyalty 
and exhilaration. 

Before their new leader came among 
them with his new ideas, these youths had 
looked upon the police and others in author- 
ity as natural enemies to be resisted and 
fought at every step. Their loyalty was 
intense and primal. They were loyal to 
their gang and to their leader. It was the 
tribal loyalty of men in primitive society. 
Their previous leaders had always led them 
against the traditional enemy — the police 
and others in authority. They had fol- 
lowed loyally. This new kind of leader saw 
fit to enter into an alliance with the tradi- 
tional enemy and declare war upon the 
lawbreakers. As before, they followed loy- 
ally. Although there was no booty to 
be had in this kind of warfare it had its 
distinct advantages. It was much more 
secure and comfortable while just as excit- 
ing, and it brought withal the novel and 
agreeable sensation of raising them to a 
position of unprecedented popularity in 
the neighborhood — that is, with its law- 
abiding members, and they were naturally 

15 



THE STREET BOY AT CLOSE RANGE 

the large majority. Their leader was their 
everyday hero. He must have the elemen- 
tal virtues: physical courage, skill, energy, 
native qualities of leadership. He had 
always had these qualities and their new 
leader was no exception. Their former 
leaders had used these qualities against the 
law-abiding and the law-enforcers. This 
new leader used them against the law- 
breakers. There lay the difference. Now, 
the new leader held strange doctrines — 
doctrines which the gang would have 
flouted as heresies had they been uttered 
by any less authoritative person. He 
actually believed that schools, churches, 
and homes were institutions to be encour- 
aged instead of spurned. He thought that 
it was brave and manly to obey the law 
yourself and to do what you could to make 
others obey; that it was cowardly and 
weak to break the law and to encourage 
others to break it. He believed that it was 
a fine thing to work and take pride in your 
work instead of holding it in scorn as tame 
and prosaic. And, strangest of all, he 
seemed to think that each one of them was 
useful and necessary to the community, 

17 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

and that other people needed their help, 
instead of assuming that people in general 
looked upon them as useless incumbrances 
to be tolerated at best and hustled off to 
jail at worst. There must be something in 
these strange notions or he would not 
believe them. Gradually and tentatively 
they accepted them; at first merely on 
trial; but finally and quite unconsciously 
they sank in and became part of their men- 
tal and moral make-up. There was no 
preaching or proselyting on Mr. George's 
part, still less any consciousness of con- 
version or reformation on their part. Their 
mental and moral world was merely turned 
— very gradually — right side up. They 
had the same tastes, feelings, desires, loyal- 
ties, and aversions only turned into differ- 
ent channels, into right channels. They 
had been socialized and incidentally moral- 
ized, but the moral change had been un- 
conscious and hence stood a better chance 
of permanence. They had as little sense of 
being good after this gradual metamorpho- 
sis as they had of being bad before it. 

When not long since an ex-member of 
the Sons of Arrest, who is now an indus- 

18 



THE STREET BOY AT CLOSE RANGE 

trious mechanic supporting his crippled 
mother, was asked, "Where would you 
probably be to-day if Mr. George had 
not come into your life?" he promptly re- 
plied, "Dead or in prison." That he would 
very likely have been in prison will sur- 
prise no one, but why dead? It appears the 
span of life of street-gang members who 
are not arrested for long terms, or who do 
not change their manner of life, lies be- 
tween thirty and thirty-five years. Very 
few reach forty. Before that the great 
majority have either drunk themselves to 
death, been killed in a fight, or fallen sick 
and died through the effects of alternate 
periods of serni-starvation and gormandiz- 
ing. This early mortality among toughs 
throws light upon the seemingly amazing 
crimes statistics which show that about 
two thirds of the crimes committed in the 
United States in the course of a year are 
done by youths under twenty-four. On 
the evidence of this same young mechanic, 
of the fifty or more boys who became mem- 
bers of Mr. George's Law-and-Order Gang, 
but two have been backsliders. One of 
these was never really influenced* He 

19 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

merely used the club for its gymnasium 
and other advantages without taking any 
part in its deeds or its spirit. The other 
became an express driver, took to drink as 
a reaction against the exposure of his 
occupation, and went down under it. 

Boys organize instinctively: into gangs 
in the city and into bands in the country. 
In all communities, but more particularly 
in the large cities, the evolution of the gang 
from petty to serious lawbreaking is both 
rapid and natural. It is but a short step 
from sympathetic predatory forays, on 
occasions of public excitement such as 
Fourths of July and election nights, to 
serious thefts and the setting of fires for 
the sake of the ensuing excitement. Bas- 
kets of peaches and other luring wares are 
so temptingly displayed and so readily 
"swiped" that the venders themselves 
seem to the fleet marauders to invite 
trouble. And all such exploits bring the 
youth of criminal predilections into con- 
stantly closer and closer touch with his 
kind and remove him further and further 
from the law-abiding. If in the neighbor- 
hood there lives a youth who supports his 

20 



THE STREET BOY AT CLOSE RANGE 

widowed mother by working early and late, 
or one who goes to a Sunday school, he is 
the target for oaths and vile names when- 
ever he passes and he is lucky to escape 
with merely these indignities. He is not 
even safe from the possibility of being held 
up unless he is fortunate enough to have 
a build which suggests too much danger. 
The trend downward toward crime soon 
becomes so marked that decency even as a 
matter of policy is tabooed. The youths 
are now out of the public schools, and in- 
stead of school-books their literature is the 
yellow journals and the worst of the cheap 
novels. From petty offenses such as the 
"swiping" of fruit and the relieving of 
drunken men of their small change, they 
advance to systematic pocket-picking and 
thence to hold-ups and burglaries. And 
with each advance come fresh honors from 
the gang. Up to the age of sixteen or there- 
abouts the drink habit is not, as one would 
naturally suppose, prevalent. It generally 
begins about this time with an occasional 
glass of painfully low-grade beer and is 
known as "rushing the growler." Cigar- 
ettes, however, have generally raised havoc 

21 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

with the physique of the gang member 
long before this age. 

Where do the recruits for the street gang 
come from? It is generally assumed that 
they are almost exclusively the orphans and 
the homeless. Many of them are, but not 
nearly as many as is generally supposed. 
Many, perhaps most, of them have homes, 
and, uncharitable as it may sound, these 
are an important contributory cause if not 
the chief reason for their criminal activi- 
ties. In fact, one of the main causes of their 
depravity is that they have places called 
homes where they can secure food and shel- 
ter, such as it is, for nothing. There is 
a difference between a home and a place 
called a home. 

By the time the gang has blossomed into 
full-fledged criminality the youths are 
quite old enough for work, but they won't 
work. There is no excitement in going to 
work, and besides it is very unpopular with 
"the bunch." One may frequently hear 
street gangs ridiculing a backsliding mem- 
ber for having done honest work, just as 
other boys ridicule a fellow for going to 
church or Sunday school. Most of them, 

22 



THE STREET BOY AT CLOSE RANGE 

however, do from time to time make half- 
hearted efforts to go to work. But as they 
are at an age where they regard themselves 
as too light for heavy work and too heavy 
for light work, they generally relapse into 
idleness after a very brief effort; that is, 
those who have places called homes upon 
which they may fall back so relapse. The 
homeless are much more apt to persevere. 
They have no place which stands between 
them and the grim alternative — * work or 
starve. It is true the father may get dis- 
gusted and turn the boy into the street, 
but he generally relents by nightfall. If he 
does not, the mother will surreptitiously 
furnish food and shelter. It might conceiv- 
ably be better for the boy at this age if he 
had no home to fall back upon. 

While homeless boys swear like horse- 
thieves, smoke cigarettes, shoot craps, and 
commit other offenses, the very responsi- 
bility that rests upon them of gaining the 
necessities of life gives them (boys such as 
the bootblack and newsboy) a kind of self- 
respect not found among street toughs to 
whom self-support is not a necessity. It 
would undoubtedly be a great surprise to 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

laymen, and even to those who have had 
some experience with lawless boys, to learn 
what a large percentage of those in reform 
schools have parents living with whom they 
nominally reside. It is a totally false im- 
pression that the reform schools are prin- 
cipally filled by orphans and the homeless. 
A few months of full-fledged gang life is 
sufficient to place any group of youth be- 
yond the pale of law-abiding society — 
even that portion of society whose alle- 
giance to law is for politic and selfish mo- 
tives merely. Being law-abiding even for 
the sake of policy is abhorrent to the gang 
because its heroes win their place by defi- 
ance of the law. In theory these youths 
still believe that they ought not to live a 
lawless existence, but this belief they look 
upon as a mawkish sentiment to be stifled 
as far as possible. There are a few excep- 
tional situations in which the heretofore 
lawless individual will do the right without 
being actuated by considerations of policy. 
Some of these are worthy of mention be- 
cause they might appear in a society where 
there was little or no property to influence 
human actions. An appeal to arms comes. 

24 



THE STREET BOY AT CLOSE RANGE 

These selfsame lawbreakers will fight like 
demons for their country. Enrollment in 
the police force has also been known to 
work apparent miracles. A former gang 
member will under this transforming influ- 
ence be even more relentless in haling his 
erstwhile "pals" to the courts than some 
of his brother officers who have from child- 
hood up been disciples of law and order. 
Opportunities for heroism and responsi- 
bility are, of course, the chief factors under- 
lying these transformations. The sudden 
necessity for self-support or the support of 
others through the death of a parent will 
sometimes work much the same change. 
If the gang tough falls in love, the thought 
of the necessity of providing for the object 
of his love will often effect a similar change. 
He will become half-hearted in the adven- 
tures of the gang and will appear in the 
eyes of his companions to be more and more 
"queer/ 5 until on his marriage he drifts 
away from them altogether and goes over 
to the enemy — the army of the world's 
workers. 

Then there are the changes which come 
through appeals to the emotions and the 

25 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

heart. Reformations based upon heart 
appeals, except in the case of individuals 
of strong will power, are almost invariably 
only temporary. Such appeals, for in- 
stance, as those of a dying mother, a parish 
priest, a city missionary, or a Salvation 
Army evangelist. In such cases the divine 
power will be found to follow very closely 
the degree of will power possessed by the 
convert. The Jerry McCauleys are few and 
far between. The combination of indom- 
itable will power and divine inspiration 
enables such converted men to bring forth 
the splendid fruits of their lives. Neither 
will power alone nor divine inspiration 
alone can produce such lives. A strong will 
and the qualities of leadership in a boy are 
sure to result in his being either a very good 
or a very bad man. The great criminal 
leader has the same qualities as the great 
industrial or political leader. The differ- 
ence between the two is not in their quali- 
ties, but in the use they make of them. 
Evangelists who work among the lawless 
pathetically exclaim, "Poor fellows, they 
meant to do right, but they fell back into 
sin because they were so weak," Add such 

26 



THE STREET BOY AT CLOSE RANGE 

common expressions to the observations of 
all who have had any experience with the 
lawless and you will concede that perse- 
verance in right living or the lack of it is 
chiefly dependent upon whether the indi- 
viduals concerned have weak, average, or 
strong will power. Some philanthropists 
believe that the lawless would mend their 
ways if their fellow men could only be 
induced to treat them with more sympathy 
and charity. A full-fledged thug is gener- 
ally an adept in plausibly expatiating upon 
his struggles and his hardships with a cold 
relentless world. When it suits his purpose 
he can tell such heartrending tales of op- 
pression and persecution as to dupe even 
seasoned workers among his kind. If such 
stories were even partially true, society 
should certainly change its attitude and 
meet the lawless at least halfway. The fact 
is that the lawless care no more for society 
and its good opinion than the major part of 
society cares for them or their good opinion. 
From some points of view the gang "in 
the open" would seem to be not as bad as it 
is painted. A former gang member, who 
had been brought back into the ranks of 

27 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

the law-abiding through Mr. George's Law- 
and-Order Gang, was recently asked, "Was 
your gang really so bad before Mr. George 
came along? " 

He replied, "I don't know what you'd 
call it. We'd smash a fellow's skull in for 
a nickel." 

The dare-devil badness of the gang 
toughs is due in no small degree to their 
vanity and passion for notoriety, and this 
morbid passion is fostered by the news- 
papers which publish their pictures and 
give graphic and detailed descriptions of 
their atrocities and crimes. Toughs await- 
ing trial eagerly scan the papers to see if 
their crimes have been featured in "big 
write-ups." If they have received this 
coveted publicity, great is their satisfac- 
tion and sense of superiority over their 
more obscure brethren. If their crimes are 
omitted or mentioned only casually as 
minor news items, their humiliation and 
mortification is correspondingly keen. It is 
a great distinction to be a real tough. " I 've 
killed my man and now I am a tough," 
exclaimed a young thug some years ago 
after committing an atrocious murder. 

28 



THE STREET BOY AT CLOSE RANGE 

The way gang thugs will settle scores 
among themselves in a sanguinary manner 
and conceal the names of their enemies 
when giving ante-mortem statements to the 
police is proverbial. Frequently a dying 
tough, when being pressed by the police 
for the name of his assailant, will say with 
his last breath and a cynical smile of 
hatred on his lips, "Give youse his name! 
Not on yer life! The gang '11 take care 
of him." 



CHAPTER II 

SUCCESS THROUGH FAILURE 

In 1890 Mr. George opened a summer camp 
for the rejected of others — for boys and 
girls who would not attend Sunday school 
or wear clean clothes, and whose dis- 
positions were not amiable. Some of them 
were over age and all were misfits. They 
were the problems of the various religious 
and philanthropic organizations which ran 
fresh-air camps. Mr. George, with a small 
band of volunteer helpers, most of them 
women, took these problems to the number 
of several hundred to the little hamlet of 
Freeville, New York, near the present site 
of the original Junior Republic. There 
they literally pitched their tents for the 
summer. Mr. George was well known in 
the neighborhood. He had been born and 
brought up on a farm at West Dryden, only 
a few miles away. His friends gave him 
not only moral support, but food and 
clothing for his wards. The local press 

SO 




DIGGING THE FAMOUS BIG DITCH 



SUCCESS THROUGH FAILURE 

wrote up the experiment with a will, and 
before long, churches, societies, and indi- 
viduals for many miles around were pro- 
viding a generous and continuous supply 
of food and clothing. 

This lively camp became a centre of 
attraction for the whole countryside. After 
their day's work, farmers would hitch up 
their teams and bring their families to see 
these erstwhile street toughs play games. 
And with them they would bring apples, 
pears, peaches, grapes, potatoes, bread, 
pies, doughnuts, and whatever else their 
fields or pantries afforded. It was a favor- 
ite and never-failing diversion for the 
farmers to throw big juicy apples in among 
groups of boys and see them scramble for 
them. Out in the sun and the wind these 
pale city boys grew brown and sturdy, and 
the anaemic girls fat and rosy. It was all 
a great lark — a great success. So said Mr. 
George's friends, and so said many other 
worth-while people, and so said the press. 

But after the first flush of novelty had 
worn off, the ghost began to appear at the 
banquet. The ghost took such forms as 
this: These young heirs of the disinherited 

31 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

began to grumble at their food. It mat- 
tered not that it was many times better 
than anything they had ever known at 
home. They grumbled just the same. The 
boys began to steal fruit from the sur- 
rounding farmers. Without compunction 
they stole from the very farmers who had 
most generously donated to their larder. 
The farmers came to Mr. George in anger 
and asked if that was the way they were 
to be repaid for their kindness. And Mr. 
George had to put his hand into his pocket 
and pay for the stolen fruit, and then whip 
the culprits if he could locate them. Then 
there was the constant cry for more — 
more food, more clothes, more of every- 
thing. Every day the insistent inquiry, 
"Say, Mr. George, what tings is we goin' 
to git when we goes home?" 

Mr. George was at this time a strong 
admirer of militarism. He organized the 
camp on a semi-military basis with him- 
self as commander-in-chief. He had daily 
drills. He carefully drew up a set of rules 
and regulations — wise and benevolent 
rules and regulations for the welfare of his 
young wards. These they broke with a 



SUCCESS THROUGH FAILURE 

regularity and skill worthy of a better 
cause. It mattered not how much or how 
clearly he explained that these rules were 
for their good and not his, they remained 
toward them either indifferent or hostile. 

So ingrained into Mr. George's make-up 
was the military idea at this time that had 
some one else developed the Junior Repub- 
lic he would have scouted it as sentiment- 
alism. While his boys and girls liked and 
admired him, they also feared him, and 
it was this fear that he frankly used as 
the corner-stone of discipline. He had a 
most orthodox belief in the Old Testament 
motto, "Spare the rod and spoil the child." 

He had, of course, lieutenants amongst 
his charges to whom he delegated certain 
responsibilities. With these he would freely 
consult and would sometimes follow their 
suggestions, but he was always careful to 
keep things absolutely in his own hands. 
Sometimes to secure certain ends he would 
appeal to the loyalty of the boys and girls 
to him personally, and at other times he 
would threaten them. He would tell them 
in their own language that unless they did 
certain things or refrained from doing cer- 

33 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

tain other things, " something would drop." 
They were sufficiently acquainted with his 
muscular powers to have this threat pro- 
duce a chastening effect upon even the 
toughest of them while he was on the scene. 
That was just where the trouble lay — 
neither the appeal to personal loyalty nor 
the threat of personal violence was always 
effective when he was not on the scene. 
Whenever he had to leave the premises his 
assistants quaked with apprehension. 

One Sunday night he had an engagement 
to address a missionary meeting in an ad- 
joining town. A group of the boys, headed 
by a former gang leader, had that day 
been frustrated in attempted mischief. 
They were in an ugly mood and intent on 
getting even with somebody. Mr. George 
felt it was dangerous to leave the camp 
in charge of his one male assistant that 
particular night, but he decided he must 
keep this appointment, particularly as the 
church where he was to speak was provid- 
ing a generous share of the provisions of 
the camp. 

He called the camp together in the big 
central tent to give them some parting 

34 



SUCCESS THROUGH FAILURE 

directions. He had to use a barrel stave as 
a persuader to get them all in. He then 
told them that he was going away for the 
evening and wished to give them "some 
orders straight from the shoulder. 5 ' They 
were to remain right where they were and 
hold a song service, after which the assist- 
ant would give them a talk. Then they 
were to march directly to the house where 
they lodged and go straight to bed. Woe 
betide the fellow who dared to "rough 
house" in the slightest degree. Behind the 
woodshed the next morning would be held 
a whipping-bee where there would be a 
very practical readjustment for any delin- 
quencies of the night before. They vowed 
they would behave, but Mr. George left 
them with misgivings. 

For a time after he went the boys were 
models of propriety, but at length they 
began to alter the hymns to suit their own 
peculiar tastes. Then, came cat-calls, hoots, 
and jeers at the faithful assistants. The 
assistants, all young women except the 
man in charge, dismissed the meeting and 
tried to get the boys in line and march 
them to their sleeping-quarters. They 

35 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

could no more keep them in line than a 
flock of wolves. When they got outside 
they began with one accord to make all 
kinds of hideous noises. Mr. George's 
parting threats, however, evidently stuck 
in their minds and before long they dis- 
appeared into their lodgings. 

The disgruntled gang leader then gave 
them a harangue, the purport of which was 
that the opportunity to "do up" the male 
assistant should not be missed. He pointed 
out that they were "in for it " anyway when 
Mr. George got back, so they might as well 
make a thorough job of it. In other words 
they might as well get their licking's worth. 
That appealed to his hearers as unanswer- 
able logic. 

Meantime the assistants had been hold- 
ing a council of war. They realized that 
physical resistance to that crowd of hood- 
lums was impossible. It was now r quite 
dark and they judged by the sounds from 
the boys' sleeping-quarters that an attack 
was imminent. Two of the women wrapped 
themselves in sheets, quietly left the tent 
and gradually approached the boys' quar- 
ters by a circuitous route. Within a few 

36 



SUCCESS THROUGH FAILURE 

rods of the house they stopped and re- 
mained motionless. Suddenly the door 
flew open and out rushed a frenzied crowd 
of street toughs. On they rushed for a few 
steps and then caught sight of the white 
figures with extended arms moving up 
and down in slow rhythmical manner. 
That was too much for the toughest tough. 
Panic seized them; they fled silently back 
into the house, bolted the doors and win- 
dows, and nothing more was heard of them 
that night. For years after, these youths 
spoke in bated breath of the night they 
had seen the ghosts at Freeville. But they 
were not allowed to escape with merely 
their fright. The next morning the whip- 
ping-bee behind the woodshed was long 
in session. 

Before the summer was over, misgivings 
began to creep into Mr. George's mind. 
Was the success of the work more than 
apparent? Were the boys and girls being 
helped in mind and heart as well as in body? 
If so, why did irresponsibility, lawlessness, 
and greed appear to be their dominant 
characteristics? At the close of the second 
summer these misgivings were still more 

37 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

insistent. He began the third summer with 
a feeling that he was doing more harm than 
good, and by the end of* the summer he 
was convinced that the work was little 
short of a crime. At the end of each sum- 
mer the children returned to their homes 
with, to be sure, more color, more strength, 
and more clothes, but with less self-respect. 
They were being pauperized; and in some 
cases their parents also. Some of the fathers 
threw up their jobs and fell back into the 
charitable arms of their children's bene- 
factors. Other fathers claimed to have lost 
their jobs when they had not. In short, the 
boys and girls were ever ready and greedy 
recipients of gratuities. They showed no 
glimmerings of gratitude. They quickly 
learned to claim charity as a right. Their 
degeneration in character kept pace with 
their receipt of unearned benefactions. 

One day toward the end of the second 
summer, when these disquieting thoughts 
were passing through Mr. George's mind, 
he was assailed by the usual crowd of clam- 
orous ragamuffins with their never-ending 
plaint, "Say, Mister George, what tings is 
we goin' to git to take home?" 



SUCCESS THROUGH FAILURE 

Turning upon them he said, with some 
heat, "Can you tell me any reason in the 
wide world why these people should give 
you anything? Have n't you had a whole 
summer of good food and good times with 
good health thrown in? What right have 
you to expect anything more?" 

A little black-eyed Italian girl strode 
forward and snapped out with flashing 
eyes, "What do you tink we come fur eny- 
way?" 

That settled it. Mr. George decided that 
he would tell his friends, and the now many 
donors to the work, that the whole thing 
was a sordid failure. He would also send 
announcements to the same effect to the 
local press. On calm second thought, how- 
ever, he decided to make a final attempt 
to turn the tide of failure. He hated to 
shock and disappoint the many generous 
contributors to the work. Furthermore, 
many of the children came from homes of 
such wretched poverty that they desper- 
ately needed the food and the clothing and 
the physical upbuilding. The problem was 
— how to get these material blessings into 
their possession without undermining their 

39 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

self-respect. The charity of the kind- 
hearted was impossible. It cultivated in 
the thoughtless recipients greed, sloth, and 
hypocrisy. On analysis, this apparent 
anomaly was a perfectly natural — yes, 
even an inevitable — process of cause and 
effect. 

These urchins were sternly practical. 
They had been born and reared in a world 
where the problem of existing from day to 
day was all-absorbing. About ethics they 
knew nothing and cared nothing. Beyond 
food and clothes, shelter and pleasure, 
their aspirations and imaginations did not 
reach. Men and women who are at close 
grips with hunger and cold do not devote 
themselves to the ethical problems of man's 
higher life and neither do their children. 
A starving man does not say grace before 
devouring a savory meal. He is consumed 
with hunger and not with piety or grati- 
tude. These children of the disinherited 
were consumed with hunger for the ele- 
mental comforts of life. If they could get 
food and clothing without work, why 
should they work? Under such conditions 
industry was meaningless and sloth reason- 

40 



SUCCESS THROUGH FAILURE 

able. Those who clamored hardest re- 
ceived most. Therefore greed was at a 
premium. Those who were most skillful in 
destroying the clothes they had, without 
detection, received new clothes the sooner. 
Hence deceit and hypocrisy were unwit- 
tingly rewarded. As to irresponsibility, 
how could these boys and girls be respon- 
sible when they had nothing to be respon- 
sible for? Surely they could not be ex- 
pected to assume responsibilities they did 
not have ! They were lawless — of course 
they were. To them laws were nothing but 
the arbitrary exactions of elderly people 
to be obeyed when necessary and evaded 
when possible. They were told that laws 
were for their good, for their protection. 
Whether they believed this or not is imma- 
terial. They did not feel it. Their conduct, 
like that of most adults, was the outgrowth 
of what they felt in the concrete and not 
what they believed in the abstract. As for 
gratitude they had no more time for grati- 
tude than has the starving man for a grace 
before eating. In fact, the greed, sloth, 
irresponsibility, ingratitude, and lawless- 
ness of these youths were merely the nor- 

41 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

mal outgrowth of conditions. As one can- 
not change human nature, to make these 
boys and girls generous, industrious, re- 
sponsible, grateful, and law-abiding was 
impossible. But one can change the mani- 
festations of human nature. Ordinary 
human nature follows the line of least re- 
sistance. Therefore, the line of least resist- 
ance should be made, so far as is possible, 
the line of right conduct. This was the 
reasoning that led Mr. George to resolve 
that to make his summer camp a success in 
fact as well as in name was worth a final 
effort. He would try once more — try 
radical experiments. If they failed, he 
would then abandon the work. 

Accordingly the next summer, he opened 
the camp with the same assortment of 
boys and girls — not the same individu- 
als, but they soon gave evidence of the 
same distressingly familiar characteristics; 
namely, greed, irresponsibility, lawlessness, 
and ingratitude. Mr. George had astounded 
one of the donors to the work by asking 
him to contribute picks and shovels in- 
stead of the usual croquet sets and other 
games. He said that he was going to give 

42 



SUCCESS THROUGH FAILURE 

up entertaining his charges and let them 
entertain him. His friend assured him that 
if he expected to amuse boys by providing 
them with hard labor, he was surprisingly 
ignorant of boy nature, but he provided 
the picks and shovels. Shortly after the 
camp opened, Mr. George called the boys 
together and gave them a spirited address 
on the necessity of hard work in order to 
enjoy life. He concluded with a discussion 
on the importance of good roads, and, pro- 
ducing the picks and shovels, he asked how 
many would like to use these tools. Amid 
shouts of enthusiasm "every last boy" 
eagerly volunteered. As there were no- 
where nearly enough tools to go around, 
Mr. George and his assistants with great 
difficulty finally lined up the eager workers 
in several lines, gave the boy at the head 
of each line a pick and a shovel, and allowed 
him to use them for five minutes, where- 
upon he fell to the rear and the next boy 
enjoyed the privilege of hard labor for five 
minutes. So it continued throughout the 
working-day, every boy receiving in his 
turn his five-minute "trick" at the coveted 
tools. Mr. George meantime exultingly 

43 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

watched the success of the experiment, 
accused himself for not having thought of 
it before, and only regretted that there 
were not enough tools to go around. The 
next day, however, his anxiety on this score 
was allayed. There were enough to go 
round. The third day, there were enough 
and to spare. The fourth day, there were 
plenty of picks and shovels, but no boys 
to use them. 

During the brief period of industry, 
grumbling had ceased and the whole camp 
had been filled with an unwonted spirit of 
content and cheerfulness. When work 
ceased, the grumbling began again, as did 
also the incessant demand for "tings to 
take home.' 5 

A few days after the collapse of the work 
game, a large box of second-hand clothing 
arrived from a neighboring city. Sur- 
rounded by an eager and expectant audi- 
ence, Mr. George knocked off the cover of 
the box. Many of the boys had slashed 
their clothes into rags in order that they 
might be the surer of getting a new outfit. 
Noticing this, Mr. George was so filled 
with disgust that he was about to nail on 

44 



SUCCESS THROUGH FAILURE 

the cover and send the box back to the 
givers, when a new idea struck him. He 
selected a particularly presentable suit, 
and, beckoning to a boy whom he thought 
it would fit, handed it to him. With mut- 
tered thanks and triumphant smiles the 
boy seized it. Mr. George then explained 
that he had not given it to him, but merely 
wanted to know what he thought of it. 
With some disappointment the boy ex- 
claimed, "Them close is wort five dollars. " 
The others protested they were worth 
more, but Mr. George let them stand at 
five dollars. He then asked the boy how 
much he could earn in a day. He thought 
he could earn a dollar — that is, with good 
luck and "murder extras." The others 
muttered their incredulity. But Mr. 
George accepted the estimate and asked, 
"If a boy can earn a dollar in one day, how 
many days will it take him to earn five 
dollars?" At once came the somewhat 
contemptuous retort, "Five days, of 
course!" "That's right," said Mr. George; 
and turning to the boy to whom he had 
handed the clothes, he said, "Now, when 
you have worked on the road five days, 

45 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

counting out three hours during the heat 
of the day, you shall have the clothes." 

There followed a howl of angry disap- 
pointment, "Work for dem old rags! Not 
on your tintype!" As Mr. George put the 
suit back into the box and nailed on the 
cover, he heard comments upon himself 
which promptly set at rest any lingering 
suspicions he may have had that he was 
still popular with his proteges. No winder 
they resented this invasion of what their 
experience had taught them to look upon 
as their vested right to get something for 
nothing. One boy inquired what he was 
"goin' ter do with them close," and he 
replied, "Either send them back or put 
them in the cellar and let them rot." Just 
as he was about to leave, he detected a dis- 
cordant note in the group. Could it be that 
there was an insurgent among them! Fin- 
ally one boy stepped quickly forward and 
said, "Mister George, I'll work for dem 
close." Mr. George handed him the tools 
and he set to work amid the jeers, threats, 
and ridicule of his companions. All alone 
for five days he worked — a despised out- 
cast among his fellows. At the end of the 

46 



SUCCESS THROUGH FAILURE 

fifth day he received his clothes. He at 
once borrowed a flatiron and pressed them, 
Mr. George well knew that had they been 
given him, so far from pressing them, he 
would have surreptitiously damaged them 
so that he might the sooner get another 
outfit. 

When he strode forth proudly arrayed 
in his freshly pressed suit, the other boys 
called him a fool. Had it not been for his 
well-known reputation as a fighter their 
scorn might not have been confined to 
words. As it was he replied, "If I'm a fool 
it's kind of funny that I'm the only guy in 
the bunch as has a decent suit o' close." 
That struck home and after some inquiries 
as to how hard the work was, one of the 
other boys turned to a companion and 
said, "I'll work for close if you will." He 
agreed, and then a third and a fourth, until 
finally a youth sung out, "If that's the 
game, let 's the whole bunch of us work for 
close." That ended the resistance. They 
all went to work and they all earned their 
clothes. From that time on, no boy received 
a stitch of clothing or an extra delicacy in 
the way of food which he had not earned. 

47 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

Industry supersedes sloth; skill and 
energy, deceit and cunning; what has hap- 
pened? Have the characters of these boys 
been changed? Not a bit! You cannot 
change character in a day any more than 
you can ever change human nature. But 
you can change the manifestations of char- 
acter even in a day, just as you can in a 
brief period change the manifestations of 
human nature. These boys have the same 
standards, the same desires, and the same 
ambitions. Before, he who was most 
greedy, most successful in hypocrisy, and 
most improvident got the most clothes, 
pies, fruit, and other coveted prizes. Under 
the new regime, he who is most industrious, 
most honest and most provident receives 
most of these same material rewards. While 
before it paid to be deceitful and lazy, it 
now pays to be honest and industrious. It 
has become politic to be good, and these 
youths, being true utilitarians, act accord- 
ingly. Here is no change of heart the ideal- 
ist will say ! True, but can any one say that 
it is not better to be industrious and honest 
than lazy and deceitful whatever the con- 
dition of the heart? "As a man thinketh 

48 



SUCCESS THROUGH FAILURE 

in his heart so is he/' To this precept 
might be added, "As a man doeth so does 
he come eventually to think. " Just as 
right living follows right thinking, so does 
right living produce right thinking. Mr. 
George used the motives and desires the 
boys had to secure good actions and start 
right habits. He did not try to use desires 
and motives which they did not have. 

One of the boys was particularly well 
dressed when he arrived at the camp. 
Among other things he had a derby hat, 
which was in that company conspicuous 
for its newness. Before he had been in 
camp twenty-four hours, some of the boys 
had shown their sense of the fitness of 
things by smashing it. So far from resent- 
ing this, the owner appeared mildly amused 
and wore the rim for some time with appar- 
ent satisfaction. It was not until after the 
introduction of the work regime that he 
decided he wanted another hat. When Mr. 
George showed him the stock, he expressed 
some disappointment at finding nothing 
as fine as his demolished "dip/ 5 but finally 
agreed to do the required two hours of 
work on the road for the best hat there was 

49 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

to be had. He worked well, came to Mr. 
George, and got his hat. With most evi- 
dent satisfaction he placed it upon his head 
with a slight tilt to one side and w T alked 
away. In less than an hour he reappeared 
spluttering with rage and carrying the 
remnants of the hard-earned hat in his 
hand. "Say, Mr. George/ 5 said he, "will 
youse look at dat dip? Won't yez make 
some sort of a rule dat de guys what smash 
up a dip like dat will get de stuffin' whaled 
out o' dem?" "Why/ 5 commented Mr. 
George, "you're making more fuss over 
this old hat, than you did over the smashing 
of that new one you had when you came!" 
"Sure," he replied with a shrug of the 
shoulders, "dat's all right, but I didn't 
work fer dat dip like I done for dis one." 

Mr. George then called together a group 
of the boys, explained graphically how hard 
Ikey had had to work for his hat, held 
up the fragments that remained, and con- 
cluded by saying that at Ikey's suggestion 
he would make a new rule, that any one 
who injured property which had been earned 
should be sent to the stone pile. At this 
the industrious shouted their approval and 

50 



SUCCESS THROUGH FAILURE 

yelled at a small group of " never- works," 
"Now will youse be good!" 

Labor makes property and property 
makes laws. Ikey wanted a law to protect 
derby hats. Other boys soon wanted laws 
to protect other forms of property which 
they had acquired by labor. Mr. George 
observed that these rules, which he grafted 
on to his code at the suggestion of anxious 
or indignant property-holders, were the 
only ones which were really enforced and 
obeyed. The rules he had made himself 
he had to enforce himself, but these rules 
were enforced by the whole community. 
They had grown up from within instead of 
being imposed from without. They had 
behind them the weight of public opinion. 
Here was the beginning of government — 
laws for the protection of property acquired 
by labor. These rules were the expression 
of the same impulse and purpose as those 
enacted by our remote ancestors in the 
beginnings of civilized society. Here was 
the beginning of government and the germ 
of the Junior Republic. Mr. George noted 
these incidents with interest, but was too 
busy to reason them out at the time. 

51 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

For the better enforcement of the rules 
Mr. George at length established a Court of 
Justice. Here he acted as Judge, Jury, and 
Grand Executioner. The sentences were 
promptly executed by the Judge, armed 
with a stout birch rod, in his capacity as 
Grand Executioner. This daily performance 
was largely attended and much enjoyed 
by all except the culprits and Mr. George. 
Another discouraging feature of the pro- 
ceedings from Mr. George's point of view 
was that the number of the culprits did not 
diminish. Each morning brought forth its 
fresh quota. Crime did not decrease. 

One morning just before he was to use 
the birch rod on the two star offenders of 
the day, Mr. George looked over the com- 
pany and saw such unmistakable glances of 
eager expectancy that he was seized with 
a humiliating consciousness of the farci- 
cal character of the whole affair. These 
boys and girls came to be entertained. It 
was their daily circus. Suddenly the idea 
flashed into his mind of turning the two 
remaining culprits over to their compan- 
ions for trial. 

"Boys and girls," said he, with great 
52 




A TOWN MEETING 




i 






L* 




A COURT SESSION 



SUCCESS THROUGH FAILURE 

earnestness, "I have been acting in all 
these cases as Judge, Jury, and Grand 
Executioner. I don't know what you have 
thought about the matter; I don't know 
that I have really cared, but this morning 
I do care. This is going to be your affair. 
I am going to let Lanky and Curly tell their 
story to you and then I am going to let you 
decide whether they shall be punished or 
go free. It's up to you." 

At once there was a change in the bear- 
ing of every boy and girl present. They 
straightened up and nodded their approval 
to Mr. George and to one another. There 
was a new light in their eyes. This light 
pleased Mr. George. He felt that justice 
would be done. 

Lanky and Curly, who were seated on a 
bench, back to the company, did not even 
turn round to see how this announcement 
was received. Lanky leaned toward Curly 
and said in a stage whisper, "Say, Curly, 
dis is a lead-pipe cinch!" 

Mr. George turned to Lanky and said, 
"Now, son, you may get up and tell your 
fellow citizens all about it." 

Lanky, who was something of a humor- 
53 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

ist, rolled his eyes toward the heavens, 
assumed a sanctimonious expression, swung 
slowly round in a pivotal manner, and 
drawled out, "I hain't stole no apples. Oh, 
no, I hain't stole no apples." 

When this effort was received with stony 
silence, instead of with the expected shouts 
of laughter, Lanky for the first time low- 
ered his eyes and looked into the faces of 
his companions. Every young face was set 
and serious. He saw that peculiar light in 
their eyes which had so pleased Mr. George. 
It did not please Lanky. He realized with 
confused amazement that he was facing 
stern judges instead of condoning pals. The 
angry defiance which is so easily aroused in 
street boys flamed forth, and he shouted, 
"Aw, every one o' youse has stole apples !" 

After this outburst, stage fright with all 
its paralyzing horrors seized upon Lanky. 
Like an animal at bay he stood abject and 
cowering for some minutes and finally 
whined out, "Say, fellers, I didn't stole 
dem apples. Curly here is de bloke wat 
stole dem." 

At this several of the boys shouted, 
"Shame, shame!" and the wretched Lanky 

54 



SUCCESS THROUGH FAILURE 

realized that he had made a fatal blunder. 
With the courage of desperation he blurted 
out, " Aw, kill me, then, if youse want ter," 
and threw himself down upon the bench. 

Mr. George said to the company, "Is 
he guilty or not guilty?" 

There was a pause and one boy called 
out in explanation of this technical phrase, 
"He wants to know wedder he done it or 
wedder he did n't done it." 

With a howl came the unanimous ver- 
dict of the jury, "He done it!" And then 
Mr. George "done it" upon the person 
of Lanky. 

After Lanky had left the tent, muttering 
that he would "lay for a chance to get 
even with every guy in the bunch," Mr. 
George said to Curly, "Now it's your 
chance, my boy." 

Curly had not watched Lanky's misfor- 
tunes in vain. He well knew he could n't 
"put anything across" on that jury and so 
he did not try. He said, "Yes, I took de 
apples, but Lanky did n't play me quite 
square when he said I took dem all. I don't 
know which of us took de most. I guess 
we did n't count, but I took me share an' 

55 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

I 'm willin' ter take me share of de trashing, 
but I jus' wan ter tell you fellers dat I'll 
hole me right hand up an 5 promise dat I 
hopes ter die if I ever takes any more, 
'cause I know it hain't right to steal an' me 
mudder she would feel orful bad if she 
know'd I'd been crookin', an' dat's all wat 
I got ter say." And with that he dropped 
upon the bench, buried his head in his 
arms, and burst into tears. 

Mr. George said, "Is he guilty? 55 

No response. 

"Is he not guilty?" asked Mr. George. 

Again no response, except that the whole 
company was plunged into an animated 
conversation. A group of the older boys 
withdrew somewhat from the others and 
appeared particularly absorbed in discus- 
sion. Finally one of these boys, evidently 
speaking for the others, said, "Mr. George, 
there hain't no doubt 'bout it that Curly is 
guilty, but say, Mr. George, won't youse 
please go light on him?" 

Here was a " recommendation for mercy," 
and Mr. George proceeded to "go light 
enough on Curly" to suit the most sympa- 
thetic observer. 

56 



SUCCESS THROUGH FAILURE 

After disposing of Curly, Mr. George 
said, "Before dismissal I want to tell you 
that hereafter all discussions of this kind 
are going to be settled in this tent by you 
boys and girls/' 

The next morning there were only half 
the usual number of offenders. Mr. George 
then announced that there would be no 
more whippings, but that those convicted 
would be required to pick up stones in the 
meadow for a number of hours commensu- 
rate with their offense. He appointed one 
of his adult helpers as keeper and charged 
him with the duty of seeing that the orders 
of the court were executed. 

This new method of punishment still 
further reduced the volume of business 
of the court. Finally, however, another 
"crime wave" overtook the community 
and at a particularly unfortunate time. 
The keeper was ill. As a kind of kill-or- 
cure experiment, Mr. George appointed the 
toughest boy in the camp as keeper in his 
stead. It was a cure. The prisoners could 
sometimes fool the adult keeper, but they 
could never fool this boy. He knew all the 
tricks. Before the colony returned to New 

57 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

York some weeks later the court had sus- 
pended for lack of offenders. 

These boys and girls returned to their 
homes laden with clothes and provisions 
they had earned. Not one had been pau- 
perized by the well-meant gratuities of 
kind-hearted people. They had won self- 
respect as well as food, clothing, and health. 
They had lived as young Americans, not 
as young slaves. Those who had most had 
worked hardest. Their reward was an 
object-lesson to those who had less. In- 
stead of remarking, as had been their gra- 
cious custom of former years, "dat dey 
was goin' by de odder lady next time," 
they pleaded for the privilege of coming 
back another year and working. 



CHAPTER III 

A NEW OLD IDEA 

After the summer campers had gone, Mr. 
George remained in the country for a brief 
period of rest and reflection. He was fairly 
bewildered by the possibilities opened up 
by the summer of radical experiments. So 
many vistas of possibility had opened be- 
fore him ! Requiring boys and girls to work 
for goods was one; their desire to protect, 
by law, property thus acquired, was an- 
other; their standard of meting out justice 
to the lawbreaker another; and the law- 
breaker's acceptance of the verdict of his 
peers still another. What would be the 
result of developing these ideas to their 
logical conclusions? Why should not boys 
and girls be required to work for their food 
and lodging as well as extras? This would 
greatly increase the desire to protect by 
law the fruits of their labor. Every indi- 
vidual would then through self-interest be 
of necessity interested in law and order. 

59 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

Boys and girls could get along without 
extra clothing to wear or additional food 
to eat, but none could live without some 
food, shelter, and clothing. During the 
past summer certain individuals had gone 
in rags and foregone extra delicacies to eat 
rather than work. Even these stanch sup- 
porters of the theory, that the world owes 
every man a living, would work if thus only 
could they obtain the necessities of life. 
Enforced industry would strengthen the 
desire to regulate the lawless. The law- 
breakers would respect even more the ver- 
dict of their peers, because there would be 
none to condone their offense or look upon 
it with indifference. 

The possession of various kinds of prop- 
erty would lead naturally to barter; a devel- 
opment of barter would mean a medium of 
exchange; and that, a currency. Currency 
would necessitate a bank to protect it from 
thieves. Now, thieves suggested laws and 
lawmaking, officers of the law, and a jail. 
And they in turn implied a court and legal 
procedure for the interpretation of the law 
and its enforcement. The germs of all these 
ideas had appeared in the summer camp. 

60 



A NEW OLD IDEA 

As soon as the boys and girls had acquired 
property as the reward of their labor, they 
had suggested laws for the protection of 
such property. These laws they had en- 
forced and obeyed with a zeal previously 
unknown. The necessity for the interpre- 
tation and enforcement of the laws had led 
to the establishment of a court of justice. 
This court had not been effective until the 
culprits had been turned over to their 
peers for judgment. It had been necessary 
to provide a keeper to guard the prisoners 
while they were serving their sentences. 
This post of keeper had been more ade- 
quately filled by one of their own number 
than by the adult who had originally under- 
taken it. 

As these thoughts passed through Mr. 
George's mind and fell into their logical 
sequence, he said to himself, "These ideas 
are unique and radical and yet withal 
possible. Moreover, they seem strangely 
familiar, as if I had known them in some 
previous existence — no, it was nearer, 
more familiar, as if I had but yesterday 
discovered them in full operation. Was it 
in a school? No. In an institution? Much 

61 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

less. In any place where I have seen groups 
of boys and girls gathered together for 
instruction or reformation? Not a trace of 
them. And yet all these ideas, both in the- 
ory, in practice, and in their relation to 
one another, are as familiar as the noon- 
day sun." 

Suddenly he awoke as if from a dream 
and exclaimed, "Why, here are the three 
powers of government — the legislative, 
executive, and judicial. Moreover, under- 
neath all is property, the economic founda- 
tion of society and of government. My 
vision differs only from the conditions of 
real life in the Big Republic, in that the 
citizens are boys and girls instead of men 
and women. This vision shall be a reality! 
It shall be our glorious Republic in minia- 
ture, and Junior Republic shall be its 
name!" 

A few days later, Mr. George returned to 
New York and outlined to his friends this 
plan to establish a community and found 
a government of, for, and by the boys and 
girls. To his great disappointment they 
did not greet the proposal with enthusiasm. 
Some of them scouted the whole scheme as 

62 



A NEW OLD IDEA 

mere moonshine and tried to dissuade him 
from attempting it. Others acknowledged 
that it was an interesting and plausible 
theory, but utterly impossible to put into 
practice. Boys and girls were too irrespon- 
sible and their judgments were too imma- 
ture for any such plan to be possible. Even 
the most sanguine saw in it nothing but a 
picturesque experiment of merely curious 
and transitory value. This opposition and 
chilling encouragement made Mr. George 
more determined than ever to demonstrate 
his theories in practice. 

With this determination firmly in mind 
he plunged for the time being into the heat 
of the struggle which resulted in the defeat 
of the Tammany ticket and the election of 
William L. Strong as Mayor of New York, 
As an active campaign worker in the tough- 
est sections of the city, he gained practical 
experience which was later of great value 
in the Republic work. He also picked out 
a few boys and girls as prospective pioneer 
citizens, as well as some young men and 
women for helpers, who had been tested 
under fire in this great municipal battle. 
Two at least of the boys thus selected 

63 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

understood almost as well as Mr, George 
himself the significance of the experiment 
in which they were about to take part. 
Both of them are now notably successful 
citizens of the Big Republic. Like many 
another since then they passed, from the 
city slums, through the Junior Republic, 
into the larger life of the world. 



CHAPTER IV 

A REPUBLIC FOR BAD BOYS 

On July 10, 1895, Mr. George arrived at 
Freeville with one hundred and forty-four 
boys and girls from the poorest and tough- 
est sections of New York City. They 
started at once to found a Republic of, for, 
and by boys and girls. Within an hour 
Mr. George was convinced that the plan 
was working. Within a few days other 
adults, some of whom had been incredu- 
lous, began to have faith in the idea. 
Within a few months hundreds of visitors 
were coming to view the unique experiment 
in self-government. 

The members of Mr. George's Law-and- 
Order Gang in the city, by reason of their 
training in law enforcement, naturally took 
the lead and were elected to most of the 
offices. Mr. George overheard the newly 
appointed Chief of Police, who had been 
one of the pillars of the Law-and-Order 
Gang, initiating some very raw recruits 

65 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

into the duties of citizenship, in these 
words, " Yez hev got ter cut yer shenanigen 
in de way o' crap-shootin' and cussin' up 
here, an' yez hev got ter get busy an' en- 
force de law or we'll lam yer." 

Before the summer was over, Mr. George 
had decided that it was his duty to burn 
his bridges behind him, stay in Freeville, 
and establish a permanent Junior Republic. 
At this point he finally severed connection 
with his waning interest — the making of 
jewelry cases — and permanently commit- 
ted himself to his waxing interest — the 
making of men. Five boys volunteered as 
pioneer citizens for the permanent Re- 
public. The democratic idea had struck 
deep in two of these boys and they realized 
in large measure the significance of the 
experiment in which they were to take 
part; the other three were merely thought- 
less youths, loyal to Mr. George and 
"game" for adventures. 

Just as Washington and his men, that 
winter at Valley Forge, fought hunger and 
cold and privation of all kinds in bringing 
the Big Republic into being, so Mr. George 
and his boys, that first winter at Freeville, 

66 



A REPUBLIC FOR BAD BOYS 

fought hunger and cold and privation in 
giving birth to the Junior Republic. And 
just as Valley Forge was a cruelly effective 
preparation for self-government for the 
pioneer citizens of the Big Republic, so 
was that first winter at Freeville a sternly 
excellent preparation for self-government 
for the pioneer citizens of the Junior Re- 
public. 

All the wood used for cooking had to be 
cut and gathered by hand. All the water 
had to be carried up a steep hill from a 
spring some distance away. When in mid- 
winter the wind was sweeping over the 
crest of this ice-glazed hill at the rate of 
sixty miles an hour, it was no mean achieve- 
ment to fetch a pail of water. After five 
more citizens had joined the colony, raising 
the number of inhabitants to twelve, these 
twelve people — two men and ten boys — 
subsisted on an income of ten dollars a 
month, — not ten dollars apiece, but ten 
dollars a month for the entire company. 
In such conditions self-reliance became a 
necessity rather than a virtue. Mr. George 
regretted the extreme hardships until he 
found what they meant for the self-reliance 

67 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

of the boys. After that he viewed them 
with complacency. 

The essentials of self-government re- 
duced to their simplest forms were all in- 
troduced into this pioneer colony. The 
boys elected one of their number President 
and he appointed a judge and a police 
officer. Rules for the conduct of the com- 
munity were made by all the citizens when 
called together by the President for that 
purpose. A tin currency was adopted as 
the legal tender of the community. They 
had a bank, a store, a hotel, and a jail — 
but during this first winter they had few 
prisoners. No citizen received anything 
except by purchase, and in order to pur- 
chase he must have purchasing power and 
this could only be acquired by labor. In 
short, this little community, except that 
there were no girl citizens, corresponded in 
all essentials to a Junior Republic as de- 
fined to-day: namely, a country village 
like any other country village except that 
the citizens are boys and girls instead of 
men and women. 

The place where the inhabitants ate and 
slept was dignified by the name " hotel/ ' 

68 



A REPUBLIC FOR BAD BOYS 

This was conducted by a citizen. The con- 
tract was let to the highest bidder every 
Saturday night. After several of the older 
boys had failed to come out even with this 
laborious contract, a little chap called 
"Artie" determined to try it. As the fruits 
of his toil as dish-washer he had a consid- 
erable pile of tin dollars laid aside. In 
spite of the protests of his advisers, Artie 
triumphantly bid in the hazardous con- 
tract. The citizen holding the contract 
inade the house rules during his week. 
Artie drafted such a drastic set of rules 
for his boarders that he was forced by 
public clamor to modify them. Even in 
the modified draft, every boy was required 
to say his prayers before getting into bed 
at night. Artie evidently wanted Provi- 
dence to smile upon his venture. Up to the 
middle of the week the young contractor 
had done so well that he began to relax 
his business vigilance. As a result he was 
by Saturday so far behind that it became 
evident he could not finish his work before 
the contract expired. That meant a heavy 
fine and failure. As a " kill-or-cure " short 
cut, Artie decided to douse the floors with 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

water instead of using the more ardu- 
ous soap and brush method. It killed. 
The water filtered through all the ceilings, 
and way down into the cellar. He was 
assessed ten dollars in damages and plunged 
into bankruptcy. One of the older citizens 
said, as he watched the disconsolate 
Artie mingling his tears with the soap- 
suds in his final scrubbing, "I'm sorry 
for you, Artie, but you know I told you 
you'd never get anything out o' this/ 5 
"I am gettin' something" replied Artie, 
straightening up and looking his compan- 
ion in the face. "What are you getting?" 
inquired the older boy. "I'm gettin' ex- 
perience!" snapped out Artie as he gritted 
his teeth, stopped his tears, and redoubled 
his efforts. A. Jones never again failed in 
business. 

Days ran into weeks, weeks into months, 
and months into years, until finally a sub- 
stantial little hamlet had come into being. 
The citizens were with few exceptions from 
homes of real poverty or no homes at all, 
so that the hardships of the rude com- 
munity were to them commonplaces. Some- 
times brawny and lawless new arrivals 

70 




PORCH, REPUBLIC INN 




LIVING ROOM, REPUBLIC INN 



A REPUBLIC FOR BAD BOYS 

would make things lively for the young 
officers before they were subdued, tried, 
convicted, and imprisoned. But law and 
order always prevailed in the end and the 
disturber of the peace was locked up where 
he could make no more trouble. When he 
returned to society after this discipline, he 
usually joined the ranks of the industrious 
and law-abiding. In prison he was forced 
to work for the community for nothing. 
Outside he could work for something. When 
it finally came home to him that the alter- 
native was not between working and loaf- 
ing, but between working for pay and 
working without pay, it did not take him 
long to choose. As time went on, Mr. 
George noticed that those citizens who 
caused most trouble w T hen they first came 
usually became the best and strongest 
leaders before they left. Finally this be- 
came so marked that he announced that 
general badness, so far as the boys were 
concerned, would be regarded as a special 
qualification for citizenship in the Junior 
Republic. When this announcement got 
abroad, there was no dearth of applica- 
tions from parents, societies, and officials 

71 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

for the admission of candidates richly 
qualified in this respect. 

Here is a composite picture of the experi- 
ence of a typical young tough committed 
to the Republic at this period. Micky is a 
gang leader of the first magnitude in one 
of the toughest sections of New York City. 
He has the indomitable will power of the 
born leader. He has long been a terror and 
scourge of the law-abiding in his neighbor- 
hood. He has assessed peddlers for the privi- 
lege of doing business unmolested. He has 
been the hero and idol of all the small boys 
of his neighborhood and he has experienced 
the ecstasy of being written up in the papers. 
Finally comes the crowning distinction. 
He is arrested for an unusually serious 
offense, sent to the city prison without bail, 
comes up for trial, and is found guilty. 
Some influential friends have interceded 
in the boy's behalf, with the result that he 
is not sent to prison. The Judge says, " I 'm 
not going to send you to prison, young man. 
I'm going to suspend sentence with the 
understanding that you go to the Junior 
Republic. Would you rather go there or to 
a reformatory?" The boy does not know 

72 



A REPUBLIC FOR BAD BOYS 

the difference and does not care, but he has 
been coached by some friend to say that 
he would prefer the Junior Republic. He 
is then placed in charge of an officer and 
starts for Freeville. On the journey he 
soliloquizes somewhat in this fashion, "This 
Republic is probably some sort of a 'ref/ 
I know the kind o' fellers I'll find there. 
They'll be warm ones. I wonder if any 
of 'em got as big write-ups when they was 
pinched as I got." The fear that some fel- 
low may tell a tale eclipsing his own in 
criminal glory leads him to review carefully 
his story and add here and there embellish- 
ments and high lights calculated to enable 
it at least to hold its own against all comers. 
When he arrives at the Republic, it does 
not look at all as he had imagined it. There 
are no walls or guards, no great brick build- 
ings with immaculate flower gardens in 
front, no big dormitories and no uniformed 
boy inmates. Instead, he seems to have 
landed in a little village similar to many 
he has passed through that very day. He 
sees around him boys and girls of about 
his own age going about their affairs with 
a cheerful briskness. He is both surprised 

73 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

and disgusted to find girls here. He feels 
that it is derogatory to his criminal record 
to be sent to a place where there are girls. 
He sees some boys playing baseball. They 
are the only ones who are wearing uniforms. 
The other boys are dressed just like any 
boys, some well and some poorly, and some 
in blue jeans like workingmen. The home 
where he has just been placed to board is 
presided over by a motherly woman whom 
the boys call "Auntie/ 5 Everybody seems 
glad to see him, but they are so free and 
easy and homelike in their ways that he 
becomes very much confused and abashed. 
He hears no swearing and begins to fear 
that this is a kind of Sunday-school place. 
This fear is increased by learning that the 
use of tobacco is punishable. The one re- 
deeming feature in all this strangeness is 
that some of the fellows speak in the 
familiar slang of the streets. He feels that 
he must establish himself in the confidence 
of some of these. 

At his first opportunity he joins the con- 
versation of a knot of fellows and begins 
to dilate upon his criminal acts. Suddenly 
he checks himself in the midst of a thrilling 

74 



A REPUBLIC FOR BAD BOYS 

tale of theft. Several of his auditors have 
turned on their heels and walked away, 
while those that remain listen in chilling 
silence. The effect of his effort to ingrati- 
ate himself with his companions has been 
much the same as if a man should go into 
a hotel and say to a group of the guests, 
"Ladies and gentlemen, I am a pickpocket 
and I have come to live with you." 

Micky spends sleepless hours that night 
wondering what kind of a place he is in, 
and why there is no appreciation of a "bad 
one." In the morning, while he is wander- 
ing about, still dazed and humiliated, he 
comes upon an old pal of the city. For a 
few minutes they have a congenial talk 
about the old life in New York, but Micky 
notices that even his friend has no longer 
any enthusiasm about their escapades. He 
is preoccupied, and soon switches the sub- 
ject to his present prospects as a contractor 
for cement sidewalks which he is laying in 
the Republic. "Are you a boss?" asks the 
mystified Micky. "Sure, an' hire about a 
dozen fellers." 

At this point they are interrupted by a 
police officer, who takes Micky by the arm 

75 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

and tells him he is under arrest. Micky 
would have sworn that no boy could ever 
arrest him, but off he goes without resist- 
ance, the young contractor following. At 
the police station he learns that a theft was 
committed the night before and that, as he 
is a newcomer, and had given himself a 
bad character, suspicion fastened upon 
him. Almost in tears he protests his inno- 
cence, but is having great difficulty in 
establishing it to the satisfaction of the 
Court, when the young contractor comes 
to his rescue. His declaration that he be- 
lieves Micky innocent has weight with the 
Court because of his high standing and 
large influence in the community, and 
Micky is set free. 

As they leave the police station, the 
contractor says to Micky, "You see you 
went and queered yourself right from the 
start by gettin' off all that stuff that you 
thought would give you a pull with the 
fellers. I made the same break myself 
when I first came. You'll learn better 
before you've been here long. Do you 
want a job? I'll give you one with me." 
"No'p," says Micky, "I guess I won't go 

76 



A REPUBLIC FOR BAD BOYS 

to work just yet." "But you'll be wanting 
your dinner before long," says the con- 
tractor, "an' that'll make you want to 
hustle, an' as quick as you get ready to get 
a move on, come to me an' I '11 give you a 
job." 

Micky continues to wander about in a 
dazed condition while he soliloquizes as 
follows, "They hain't none o' my kind here. 
Even that kid contractor what belonged to 
our gang in the city, an' we thought was a 
warm one, has gone wrong here an' got 
into the preachin' business. Work for him! 
Not on yer life ! I wish dey 'd 'a' sent me 
to a reg'lar ref . Honest, I 'm goin' to beat 
it. I wonder if I can git some feller to go 
wid me. Like as not if I try, he'd squeal. 
Think I'll beat it alone. That makes me 
tink. I seen the feller in the next room to 
me has a silver watch. He had it out last 
night showin' it to another guy. I'll just 
lift that an' make my sneak. I can hock it 
when I git ter the city. I guess I '11 go round 
an' see if I can lift it now. I seen him goin' 
ter work with his overalls on." 

Micky goes up to the room, finds it un- 
locked, enters and takes the watch, and 

77 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

then starts off across the fields toward the 
railroad station. Before he has gone far he 
hears some one shouting, and turning, sees 
"that fresh kid officer" in close pursuit. 

"Where you goin'?" shouts the officer, 

"Out to pick flowers," Micky calls back. 

The young officer retorts, grinning, "Just 
you come along with me an' see the nice 
flowers we got over to the station house." 

The humor of this retort does not appeal 
to Micky, but as before he submits without 
resistance. When they reach the station 
house the officer, to Micky's great dismay, 
begins to search him. Micky sees all hope 
is gone. Article after article is produced 
until finally out comes the watch. 

"Where did you get this?" asks the 
officer. 

"Me poor sick mother give it to me just 
before I left New York," answers Micky 
sullenly. 

He is held in custody as a suspicious 
character. A little later the boy from whom 
he stole the watch rushes in breathlessly 
and gasps out that he has been robbed. To 
his great delight he is shown the much- 
prized watch, which he identifies and bears 

78 



A REPUBLIC FOR BAD BOYS 

off in triumph. That same day the Grand 
Jury meet and indict Micky for larceny, 
whereupon he is locked in a cell in the jail. 

"How can I get out o' this cooler?" he 
asks the smiling young turnkey. 

"Just git bail — that's all," is the reply. 

Micky knows well what bail is, and 
replies cheerfully, "All right. I'll git that 
fixed easy. I '11 be out in ten minutes. Go 
an' git me friend, the contractor, will yer? " 

As the accommodating turnkey hastens 
off on his errand, Micky says to himself 
with deep disgust, "Ah, all dis red tape 
makes me sick!" 

The young contractor arrives in a few 
minutes and says, "Got pinched, eh, 
Micky?" 

"Shure ting, an' I want ter git out er dis. 
They tell me I've gotter git bail an' I 
knowed youse would go it for me if I sent 
for yer." 

"You got another guess comin' on dat, 
Micky!" 

"How is dis?" asks Micky angrily; 
"you're goin' back on an old pal?" 

"No, Micky, not if you'd ha' been 
willin' ter work an' not try to beat it on the 

79 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

sneak, but you did, an 5 that queered it. 
You started off without sayin' nothin' to 
me an' I know you 'd do it again if I come 
up with the bail; an 5 then I'd be stung an' 
have to fork over to the Government some 
o' my good money what I worked hard for. 
Things is different up here, Micky, you'll 
find before — " 

"Aw, cut it out an' go chase yerself, you 
preacher you!" angrily interrupts Micky. 

But the young contractor has no more 
than disappeared before Micky's valor 
begins to ooze out in the form of large tears 
which make their white course down a very 
dirty face. 

"Guess I'm goin' ter git it in de neck dis 
trip all right," he woefully soliloquizes. 

The following Friday evening he is 
brought before the Court for trial. A jury 
of four, which happens to be made up of 
two girls and two boys, is impaneled to 
try his case. The District Attorney with 
a businesslike air seems to be informing the 
Court of all the disagreeable things possible 
against him. His lawyer, who he later 
learns was employed by his former pal, the 
contractor, puts the best face possible upon 

80 



A REPUBLIC FOR BAD BOYS 

matters, but since he was caught in the 
act, his case is hopeless, and after being 
out only two minutes, the jury bring in a 
verdict of " guilty/' Then the quiet, 
thoughtful-looking boy Judge, after giving 
Micky some good advice, which in his con- 
fused state of mind he only half hears, 
pronounces sentence. He is to serve for 
so many weeks in the Republic jail. He is 
at once taken in charge by the boy keeper, 
escorted back to the prison, given convict 
clothing, and locked in a cell awaiting the 
call in the morning to go out to work with 
his dozen or so fellow convicts. 

When he is left alone, he sinks upon the 
cot in his cell and rapidly reviews in his 
mind all the events from the time of his 
arrest in the city up to the present moment. 
His confused speculations run somewhat 
thus, "Down dere in de Tombs dey tought 
I was a tough bloke. I was it, an' dey put 
it in de papers. I dunno what's de matter 
up here. Tings is all twisted! Here I'm 
in jail just like I was down in de city, but 
I shure hain't it" and with that he bursts 
into sobs. 

What is the matter with the valiant 
81 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

Micky? How is it that, having snapped 
his fingers in proud defiance at the terrors 
of the great gloomy Tombs prison in New 
York, he is crushed and penitent in this 
little country jail? Here he finds himself 
locked up by his equals and companions 
because they cannot trust him. There is 
no romance in that! No, there is nothing 
brave or dashing, nor is there even salve 
for wounded vanity! Back in the city he 
was captured by the enemy, — the Police, 
— and by the enemy he was held with all 
the proper oaths, threats, and other melo- 
dramatic features. On the outside his fol- 
lowers mourned and admired their mar- 
tyred hero and feasted their eyes enviously 
upon the published accounts of the dark 
deeds of this "daring young criminal." 
But here is no glory, only bitter humilia- 
tion. 

After Micky has served his allotted time, 
with some curtailment for good behavior, 
he comes out chastened, gets a job under 
his friend, the young contractor, and grad- 
ually becomes industrious, clean, orderly, 
and law-abiding. Has his character been 
reformed? Not at all. He has simply, by 

82 



A REPUBLIC FOR BAD BOYS 

the use of his excellent powers of observa- 
tion and quick wits, discovered that it does 
not pay to be bad in the Junior Republic. 
There is neither fame, honor, nor profit in 
badness in this place. Micky is no fool. 
Under these hopelessly unprofitable condi- 
tions he ceases to be bad. 

After the Republic had for some years 
proved successful in reforming bad boys 
from poor homes and no homes, Mr. 
George began to receive applications from 
rich and well-to-do parents whose boys 
were committing vicious or criminal acts. 
For some time he refused to admit such 
boys, on the ground that the money con- 
tributed to the Republic was given to aid 
the poor and unfortunate. Finally, how- 
ever, he concluded that there was no logical 
reason why the son of a rich or well-to-do 
man should not be saved to society just 
as well as the son of a poor man, provided 
only he did not eliminate the poor boy. The 
financial difficulty was surmounted by not 
using any of the contributed funds for such 
boys. While the boys themselves were put 
on exactly the same basis as the poor boys, 
and made to support themselves, their 

83 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

parents were required to pay for them just 
as they would were they attending a 
boarding-school. "Nothing Without La- 
bor" was adopted as the motto of the 
Republic, and was applied just as rigidly 
to the rich boy as the poor boy. After that 
it mattered not whether a boy were rich 
or poor — the only qualifications for ad- 
mission were a sound mind and a sound 
body, plus general badness. 

Everything depended upon the industry 
and thrift of the individual boy. So it 
might happen, and often has happened^ 
that a boy from a slum district like Hell's 
Kitchen or Mulberry Bend in New York 
may through industry and thrift become 
rich by Republic standards, while the son 
of a rich man may through the opposite 
qualities be arrested and sentenced for 
vagrancy. In some such cases the poor boy 
has helped the rich boy to get onto his feet, 
sometimes even giving him employment 
himself. 

A boy once came to the Republic who 
up to the age of fourteen had never known 
a man, woman, or child who was not a 
crook. He had never been inside a school, 

84 



A REPUBLIC FOR BAD BOYS 

or a church, or a home worthy of the name. 
He had never heard of either of his parents. 
From his earliest remembrance he had 
gained his subsistence by picking pockets. 
When he grew large and strong, he went 
into the hold-up business as being both 
more exciting and more profitable. If there 
was ever a born criminal, according to 
superficial popular standards, it was this 
boy. When he entered the Republic at the 
age of sixteen, he was so dirty and unkempt 
both in mind and body that even the stout 
democracy of that little commonwealth 
could not stomach him. He was a social 
outcast even there. He was so almost 
revoltingly unattractive that none of the 
employers in charge of the farm and the 
shops would have him around. Besides, 
he had never done any honest work and 
was hopelessly clumsy in his half-hearted 
efforts. Finally he drifted to the jail, where 
an indigent citizen may lodge three days 
at the public expense. When his three days 
were up, he was arrested as a vagrant, 
tried, convicted, and committed to the jail. 
During his jail term he was set to work as 
a plumber's assistant. By the time his term 

85 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

was over he had learned such rudiments of 
the trade that on his release he was able to 
secure employment in the plumbing shop. 
He then began to change rapidly. He 
learned how to wash and to wear collars 
and neckties and to make himself generally 
presentable. No sooner had he got on his 
feet than he began to act as a guide, philo- 
sopher and friend to the more desperately 
"down and out" of the newcomers and to 
those just released from the Republic jail. 
He cheered many a far-from-hopeful citi- 
zen by telling him his own story and assur- 
ing him that what he had done any one 
could do. Finally he and his followers 
organized a club which they called the 
" Down-and-Out Club/' of which he was 
very naturally elected president. 

In talking with one of the Republic citi- 
zens Mr. Stowe learned how this boy had 
helped a boy from the opposite pole soci- 
ally who came to the Republic about this 
time. This youth's family was of the bluest 
blood in the country. In spite of this he 
had been universally condemned by all 
who had had to do with him for "miscel- 
laneous worthlessness," to use an expres- 

86 



A REPUBLIC FOR BAD BOYS 

sive phrase coined by the late Professor 
Shaler of Harvard. He was incredibly in- 
dolent and went to jail as a vagrant rather 
than work. In the jail he was of course 
forced to work. When he came out, so bad 
was his reputation that no one would em- 
ploy him. He was about to be recommitted 
to the jail when Sneider, president of the 
" Down-and-Out Club/' took him in hand. 
He tried to get him a job, but no one 
would have him. Sneider talked the matter 
over with his club friends and said, "You 
know Boutwell, that swell guy? Well, I've 
been tryin' to land a job for him, but it 
ain't no use. There won't nobody have 
him. They say he ain't no good, an' per- 
haps he ain't, but I believe there 's good in 
that guy if anybody could dig down deep 
enough to get it out. Now, our clubroom 
is as dirty as a pig-pen because there ain't 
no one to keep it cleaned up. How would 
it be if I was to give Boutwell a job as a 
kind of janitor-like, to keep the place 
slicked up? If you fellers could n't stand 
the strain to pay him, I could pay him 
mostly myself, now that I'm on Easy 
Street. Do you think he'd take it?' 5 

87 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

They thought it probable that he would 
take anything rather than go to jail again, 
and told Sneider to "try de guy/' but they 
variously expressed the opinion that the 
arrangement would not last long. Accord- 
ingly Sneider offered him the job and he 
accepted. For a week or so Boutwell gave 
satisfaction and all went well. Then, one 
morning, after some festivities in the club- 
room the night before, Sneider, before go- 
ing off to work in the plumbing shop, asked 
Boutwell to be sure and swab down the 
floor and get things to rights during the 
day. When Sneider came back that night, 
he found Boutwell buried in a novel, the 
floor unwashed, and everything in confu- 
sion as when he had left in the morning. 
The floodgates of Sneider's righteous fury 
flew open and he burst out, "You lazy, 
worthless bloke, you! Here you was the 
tag end of the whole Republic an 5 every- 
body said as you was all to the bad an" 
would n't have you round, an' I come along 
an' said there was some good in you some- 
wheres, an' made dis here job for ye an' 
paid ye mostly out o' me own pocket, an' 
dis is the way yer pay me for it! I guess 

88 



A REPUBLIC FOR BAD BOYS 

they was right when they said youse was 
no good, an' I guess I was a fool to bother 
with ye, but I'm goin' to be a bigger fool 
still an' give you one more chanst. If ye 
don't make good dis trip, I'll take ye by 
de collar an' throw ye out dat winder an' 
clean my hands of ye. Now, get busy an' 
let's see if deys all got de laugh on me an 5 
you ain't no use anyways." So saying he 
abruptly left the room. 

After several weeks had elapsed, during 
which Boutwell had kept the clubroom 
immaculately clean, Sneider said to him 
one morning, "Well, Bouty, dey did n't get 
de laugh on me after all. I knew dey was 
good in ye if we could only dig it up an' 
we done it. Now, I 'm goin' out an' tell 'em 
you're jest as good as any of 'em an' git 
ye a real job." 

Sneider got the real job for Boutwell and 
then had the satisfaction of saying, "What 
did I tell ye 'bout dat guy?" as Boutwell 
forged rapidly ahead into the front rank 
of wealth and prominence in the Republic. 
After a time the " Down-and-Out Club" 
secured for their leader the nomination for 
President of the Republic. He was elected 

89 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

almost unanimously. His first official act 
was to give Boutwell the chief portfolio 
in his Cabinet, that of Judge of the Re- 
public, and they made a strong team. 

There never were abler Governments 
nor a higher standard of intelligence and 
morality in the Junior Republic than dur- 
ing the period when "general badness " 
was a special qualification for admission. 
This was neither more nor less true after 
the admission of boys from homes of cul- 
ture and wealth. Soon, however, it became 
obvious, as in the case of Sneider and Bout- 
well, that the mingling of boys from radi- 
cally different social spheres was of mutual 
advantage. The severe laws against smok- 
ing, drinking, and swearing now on the 
statute books of the Republic were enacted 
by the citizens during this "general bad- 
ness" regime. Up to this time the Junior 
Republic was in effect a reformatory — a 
reformatory that actually reformed. 



CHAPTER V 

THE REPUBLIC BECOMES A DEMOCRACY 

From the founding of the Republic there 
had always been one or two citizens who 
had no bad record, Mr. George found that 
the responsibilities of citizenship were of 
as great advantage to these as to those 
who had been distinctly bad. He had been 
distressed, too, at finding that outsiders 
commonly regarded his friends, the citi- 
zens, as "young criminals." He saw that 
the Junior Republic was coming to be 
looked upon solely as a reformatory. Now, 
while it did reform, he was anxious that it 
should stand for much more. Furthermore, 
the so-called bad so soon became good after 
entering the Republic that the outside dis- 
tinction between goodness and badness in 
boys and girls appeared more and more 
superficial and unimportant. Then, too, 
as the intrinsic value of the Republic train- 
ing came to be recognized, applications 
began to come for the admission of boys 

91 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

and girls who were not bad. And so Mr. 
George concluded that to exclude such boys 
and girls, like the former exclusion of the 
bad who happened to come from homes of 
wealth, was both illogical and unjustifiable. 

Accordingly the last bars were let down 
and the Republic gradually became a real 
democracy, admitting to its citizenship all 
boys and all girls of all degrees of goodness 
and badness, and of all classes of society, 
provided only they were sound in mind and 
body. At this time Professor Liberty Hyde 
Bailey of Cornell remarked, "The Junior 
Republic is rapidly evolving from a reform- 
atory institution to a great educational 
principle"; and Mr. George shocked estab- 
lished traditions by the public announce- 
ment that "a bit of the Junior Republic 
training is good for all boys and all girls, 
no matter what their moral character or 
social standing." After this it made no 
difference, so far as admission to the Re- 
public was concerned, "whether boys or 
girls were black or white, rich or poor, very 
very good, or very very bad, so long as 
they were very very something." 

People say, "But don't the boy and girl 



A REPUBLIC BECOMES A DEMOCRACY 

citizens make mistakes?" Of course they 
do — just as do their elders. "Don't they 
make unwise laws?" From time to time 
they do make unwise laws and then they 
suffer for them, just as we do. The Super- 
intendent has a veto on all laws, but he 
does not use it. It is merely a precaution, 
like an escape valve on a boiler. The way 
to learn the necessity for wise laws is to 
experience foolish ones. When an unjust 
law is passed, those who are injured by it 
agitate, go to the courts, and sooner or 
later secure its amendment or repeal. At 
one time, for instance, a law was passed 
that the District Attorney should receive 
twenty-five cents for every arrest he made 
and fifty cents more for every conviction 
he secured. After that law went into effect, 
every arrest led to a conviction. There 
were no more acquittals, at any rate, in the 
police court cases where there were no 
juries. There was plainly a corrupt alli- 
ance between the District Attorney and 
the Judge. They were using the new law 
as a "get-rich-quick" scheme for them- 
selves. Finally the President of the Re- 
public went to the Hon. Thomas Mott 

93 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

Osborne, Chairman of the Board of Direct- 
ors of the George Junior Republic Associa- 
tion, and said, "Uncle Tom, we've got to 
do something to stop this grafting in the 
Court under the new fee law. I've been 
thinking we ought to have a Court of 
Appeals, and I wondered if your Executive 
Committee would n't be willing to act as 
a Court of Appeals for us." Mr. Osborne 
thought the suggestion a good one, so did 
the other Directors, and so did Mr. George. 
Since then a Court of Appeals, composed of 
three members of the Executive Commit- 
tee, has sat monthly and heard the cases 
on appeal of all offending citizens not con- 
tent with the verdict of their peers. The 
first cases to come before this Court were 
those of the unfortunates who had been 
convicted for the enrichment of the Dis- 
trict Attorney and the Judge. Naturally 
they were acquitted, while the offending 
District Attorney and Judge were im- 
peached and deposed by the Senate. Since 
then the cases appealed have not been 
numerous, and in the great majority the 
adult Judges have upheld the decisions of 
the young Judges. 

94 



A REPUBLIC BECOMES A DEMOCRACY 

Other people say, "But are n't you afraid 
the boys and girls will be lax in their moral 
legislation, especially when some of them 
have had no moral home training? " Here 
is the very least danger of all. The sense 
of the community is sternly moral and the 
laws reflect it. What adult community 
could enforce laws prohibiting the use of 
tobacco and making gambling and obscene 
conversation felonies? This they are doing. 

The law against tobacco was passed dur- 
ing the period when "general badness" 
was a special qualification for admission. 
At that time the laws were made by a Con- 
gress with an upper and a lower house. 
That method of lawmaking the citizens 
have since abandoned for the town meeting. 
One day "Daddy' 5 George happened to 
see his friend Jones being escorted to the 
police station by an officer. Knowing that 
Jones was a particularly law-abiding citi- 
zen, his curiosity was piqued and he went 
to the police station to find out what could 
be the charge against him. By the time he 
reached the jail Jones had already been 
locked into a cell. As he approached, he 
heard him exclaim to his fellow prisoners, 

95 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

"Do youse want ter know why I'm 
pinched ?" They naturally did, and so did 
Mr. George, who promptly stepped behind 
the cell block without making his presence 
known. Jones began, "Well, it happened 
dis way. Dere was me pal Noonan an' me 
odder pal Hickey, we belonged to de same 
bunch down in de city, an' say! but de tree 
of us could hit de cigarettes in great shape. 
Well, we came up here an' dem two guys 
gets elected to de legislature. When dey 
gets inside dere makin' laws, almos' de 
very first one dey makes is dat a guy wat 
smokes is goin' to get ten days in jail. I'm 
de first guy what 's got stung by dis law — 
dat shows wat yer friends does for yer when 
dey gets into politicks." 

At this point Mr. George silently left 
the building and hunted up Senator 
Noonan. When he found him, he said, "Is 
it true, Noonan, that a law has been passed 
against the use of tobacco?" 

"Sure," replied Noonan; "dat's true all 
right." 

"How did it happen?" 

"Well," continued Noonan, "it was like 
dis. I was elected to make laws for de good 

96 



A REPUBLIC BECOMES A DEMOCRACY 

of de crowd, an' Hickey was one of de 
odders what got elected. De first day dat 
we had a meetin' of de legislature, one of 
de senators said what we was dere fer, an' 
dat it was to look into tings an' make laws 
ter keep all de guys an' girls from goin' 
crooked. I looks at Hickey an' I sez, 
' Hickey, what do yer tink is 'bout de worst 
ting fer a bloke? What hurts him more den 
any odder ting?' 'Sure, it's cigarettes,' 
sez Hickey. 'What do youse tink?' 'I 
tink de same,' sez I. Den we looked at one 
anodder fer a little while rather serious- 
like, an' den we both laughed. Hickey sez 
to me, he sez, 'Hev youse got de nerve to 
make a bill to jug a guy if he smokes?' I 
knew what he was goin' to crack all right, 
I was jest goin' to ask him de same ting. 
'Sure,' I sez, 'I'll put it over an' try to 
live up to it, if youse will.' 'All right,' he 
sez, 'I'm game.' And of course den it was 
up to me an' I got some of de odder senator 
guys to vote wid us an' we put it over." 

Mr. George looked at him narrowly for a 
moment and then said, "Say, Noonan, 
tell me something on the q. t., as between 
man and man. Are you smoking now?" 

97 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

Noonan gave him a quick glance and 
then his eyes fell to the ground. He 
poked the earth nervously with the toe of 
his shoe for a few seconds. Suddenly he 
straightened up, looked him straight in the 
eye, and said with a broad grin, "Say, 
Daddy, dat law had n't been passed more 'n 
five minutes before de cigarette habit come 
on me de likes I never seen in all my life- 
time, but I fought it off for over a day, den 
I went down to de barn where I had a ciga- 
rette bunked. I looked all round to see dat 
nobody was lookin' an' den I pulled out a 
match an' lighted up, but before I had took 
two pulls at it, I felt dat mean dat I wanted 
to kick myself round de whole place. I tru de 
ting down an 5 stamped it in de ground. 
Honest, I ain't smoked no more from dat 
time to dis, but jest as you've come up 
now, you've caught me hevin' de fight of 
me life from goin' an' smokin' anudder 
cigarette, 'cause I knows where dere's one 
bunked." 

The girls in the Republic take an equal, 
although of course not an identical, part 
with the boys, in the work, in the Govern- 
ment, and in the whole life of the com- 

98 



A REPUBLIC BECOMES A DEMOCRACY 

munity. As Mr. George says, "Were there 
no girls, the place would be more of a mon- 
astery than a Republic/' For a time the 
boys excluded the girls from the suffrage 
in the Republic because the women were 
excluded in the State, But this, like other 
undemocratic features of the little com- 
munity, was given up as it grew and ex- 
panded into a real democracy. In the 
Junior Republic to-day young and old, 
male and female, rich and poor, great and 
obscure, mingle together on terms of nat- 
ural intimacy without vulgar familiarity. 
Are there no dangers in this? Of course 
there are dangers. Are there no failures? 
Of course there are failures. The Junior 
Republic is no Utopia — far from it! If it 
were, it would be no proper preparation for 
living in this world. It is full of imperfec- 
tions — full of the marks of human weak- 
ness. In other words, it is real — merely 
what the big Republic would be if every 
citizen could know and understand every 
other, and if the laws of cause and effect 
had equally free play. 

That the Junior Republic is no Utopia 
was never more strikingly illustrated than 

99 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

last summer. The President, the same 
Sneider, part of whose story was told in the 
last chapter, resigned and left to go to 
the student conferences at Northfield, and 
thence to New York to work at the plumb- 
ing trade. Several others left about the 
same time, most of them leading citizens 
and some of them high officials. Among the 
latter was Boutwell, the Judge. A group 
of newcomers, to whom the Republic idea 
as yet meant little or nothing, looked upon 
this sudden exodus of so many of "those 
having authority" as a providential oppor- 
tunity to seize the reins of government and 
run things to please themselves. They 
promptly organized into a sub rosa organi- 
zation, which was nothing more nor less 
than the familiar political ring in minia- 
ture. A special election had to be held to 
fill the vacant offices. This was to be pre- 
ceded by a nominating convention. When 
the convention met, the boss of the ring 
succeeded, on some technical pretext or 
other, in having it indefinitely postponed. 
Through some mysterious oversight the 
notices of the postponed meeting reached 
the members of the ring only. They were 

100 



A REPUBLIC BECOMES A DEMOCRACY 

on hand in full force. They had made up 
the complete ticket before the other citi- 
zens got wind of the meeting. Every 
nominee was a member of the ring. The 
other citizens protested, but they were un- 
organized and did not know how to undo 
what had been done. With the aid of some 
intimidation, the ring ticket was elected. 
As soon as the new officials were in the sad- 
dle they began to ride roughshod over the 
Kttle community! The officers of the Re- 
public always receive some pay for their 
official duties, but not enough to relieve 
them of the necessity of working at a trade. 
The new officers first got the taxes raised 
and then raised their own salaries so that 
they were relieved of the necessity of 
working. They smoked, swore, and drank 
beer. There were stringent laws against 
all these offenses. But they snapped their 
fingers at the law because all the machinery 
for its enforcement was in their own con- 
trol. They spent most of their time loafing 
round in their best clothes and smoking 
cigarettes while their slaves toiled for their 
support. They formed a shameless pluto- 
cracy and exploited all the others. They 

101 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

enforced the "blue laws" against the others 
with most unreasonable and arbitrary 
severity. When one of these unfortunates 
fell into the toils of the law, a member of 
the ring would frequently draw him aside 
and whisper in his ear, "I got a swipe wid 
de Jedge an' I'll get ye off if you'll come 
up wid de dough/' or words to that effect. 
Some of the Directors were shocked and 
horrified at this scandalous state of affairs. 
Self-government was well enough, but this 
sort of thing was intolerable ! After all they 
were legally responsible for the welfare of 
these boys and girls. This was an emer- 
gency which demanded arbitrary and sum- 
mary action. The good citizens must be 
protected against these young pirates who 
had seized the ship of State. Mr. George, 
supported by those of the Directors whose 
faith was greatest, urged the policy of 
"hands off." "Don't let us do anything 
to protect these young brigands against 
the righteous indignation of their fellow 
citizens. Don't let us do anything that may 
soften the blow when the worm turns and 
the reaction sets in. Don't give the cor- 
rupt government any opportunity to shift 

102 



A REPUBLIC BECOMES A DEMOCRACY 

its sins on to the shoulders of adults. Don't 
do anything to spoil this signal opportun- 
ity to teach bad officials and good citizens 
alike that 'the way of the transgressor is 
hard/ Give counsel and advice to those 
who ask it, but don't do their thinking for 
them. These thoughtless young rascals 
have set in motion a chain of events which 
will inevitably give them a vivid lesson in 
the operation of cause and effect in the 
moral law. Let nothing be done to prevent 
their learning this lesson to its bitter end!" 
So argued Mr. George and the "hands off " 
policy was followed. 

While the ring was at the height of its 
power, Bout well returned from his vaca- 
tion. The inglorious but profitable judi- 
cial career of the ring's creature, the Judge 
pro tern., ceased, and Boutwell resumed his 
seat. He found himself in the uncomfort- 
able position of being the only honest 
member of a dishonest Government. His 
judicial office was of little use because the 
real malefactors were never arrested and 
brought before him. He could issue war- 
rants to his heart's content, but there was 
no one to serve them. The police officers 

103 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

were in the ring. They refused to obey the 
Court. 

Boutwell gathered about him the older 
and leading citizens outside the ring and 
they had frequent earnest conferences as 
to ways and means of overthrowing the 
corrupt Government. They began to col- 
lect damaging evidence. Boutwell went to 
Ithaca and conferred with one of the Judges 
there. Finally, after a day of particularly 
flagrant scandals, he called his little band 
of advisers together and said to them, 
"Fellows, these outrages have got to stop 
and we've got to stop them. If we can't 
do it in one way, we 've got to do it in an- 
other. I've a scheme to swear in some of 
the huskiest of you fellows as special police 
officers and then give you warrants for the 
arrest of every member of the Government 
from the President down. I'm now going 

to call up Judge of Ithaca and ask 

him if that would be legal." 

He called up the Judge and his compan- 
ions listened eagerly to Boutwell's end of 
the conversation. As he put down the 
receiver, he turned toward them with his 
jaw hard set and said, "Don't any of you 

104 



A REPUBLIC BECOMES A DEMOCRACY 

fellows dare ask me what the Judge said. 
I '11 swear three of you in as special officers 
and then you go out and make the arrests 
beginning with the Keeper of the Jail." 

The meeting broke up and the special 
officers scattered with their warrants. 
Within half an hour they had every officer 
behind the bars with the exception of the 
Vice-President. Not one resisted arrest. 
Bout well faced the Vice-President in the 
ante-room of the jail and said, "You ap- 
point Baker Secretary of State, and do it 
quick!" 

The Vice-President, who was then Acting 
President, complied, and was turned over 
to a special officer to be in turn locked up. 
The newly appointed Secretary of State 
thereupon became Acting President and 
around him was hastily gathered a provi- 
sional government to serve until a special 
election could be held. The Grand Jury 
met at once and indicted the imprisoned 
officials. They were speedily tried. The 
evidence against them was abundant, and 
they were committed to" jail for terms vary- 
ing from one to eight months. Since the 
expiration of their terms they have all done 

105 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

well, and two of them have sufficiently- 
won back the confidence of their fellow 
citizens to be again elected to office. One 
of them, when asked if he would like to 
get up another graft ring if opportunity 
offered, replied, "What kind of a fool do 
you take me for? I've had my medicine 
and I'm not lookin' for any more." 

Superficial observers have sometimes 
called the Junior Republic irreligious. If 
they mean by this that it is absolutely 
non-sectarian and that there is no com- 
pulsory church attendance, that of course 
is true. It could not be otherwise without 
violating the very principles of liberty and 
democracy for which the Republic stands. 
If they mean that there is no religious life 
in the community, that is most emphatic- 
ally untrue. There is a very strong reli- 
gious life. There are among the citizens 
Catholics, Jews, Unitarians, Episcopalians, 
Methodists, and other Protestant sects. 
All are free to worship in their own way, 
under their own spiritual advisers, or not 
at all if that is their way. Housemothers 
and helpers naturally use their influence to 
interest the citizens in the services and 

106 



A REPUBLIC BECOMES A DEMOCRACY 

other religious activities. Quite as natu- 
rally, they do not and cannot order them 
to take part. The value of compulsory 
religious observances may under any con- 
ditions be questioned. The early Spanish 
explorers converted the Indians to Christ- 
ianity at the sword's point. That is an 
extreme example, but all compulsory reli- 
gious observance involves the same prin- 
ciple. In the Chapel, Sunday-school classes 
have at times been simultaneously con- 
ducted by a Catholic priest, a Jewish 
rabbi, a Unitarian minister, an Episcopal 
rector, and a Methodist preacher. Priests, 
ministers, rabbis, and laymen are cordially 
invited to come and teach whatever they 
believe to whoever will attend. 

The school life of the Republic is like 
that of any country village except that the 
schools are better than in most villages. 
There is a grammar school and a high 
school. The citizens attend school in the 
morning and work on the farm or at their 
trade in the afternoon, or vice versa. There 
is at present a law that no citizen may stay 
away from school without the consent of 
the Principal. This law, like all others, 

107 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

was of course made by the citizens them- 
selves. 

The citizens live in cottages. Each cot- 
tage is in charge of a housemother. An 
enthusiastic visitor once remarked to his 
citizen guide, "Oh, you have the cottage 
system here, don't you?" The citizen re- 
plied, "We have the cottages, sir, but not 
the system." The cottages vary as to 
board, from the "Hotel," a kind of bar- 
racks, where the unskilled workers may 
live on their minimum wage, to the best 
cottage, where only the skilled workers 
can afford to live. The housemother may 
take whom she pleases. Likewise her 
boarders may come and go at their pleasure. 

The Republic is one place in the world 
where one may see boys and girls as they 
really are. There are no restraints and pro- 
hibitions except those self-imposed by the 
community. That gives the boys and girls 
an openness and naturalness of manner 
which makes acquaintance easy. It is 
something the manner of the man of the 
world without the sophistication. It is the 
characteristic manner of self-governing 
boys and girls. This free and natural 

108 



A REPUBLIC BECOMES A DEMOCRACY 

atmosphere makes it particularly easy for 
the volunteer workers, who come to the 
Republic from all over the country, and 
stay weeks, months, or even years, to give 
and take effectively. They do not have to 
waste time boring through artificial bar- 
riers of servility, suspicion, and restraint. 
Some of the best people of the country, in 
every sense, come to the Republic as vol- 
unteers, and their friendly contact with the 
citizens forms one of the most potent 
influences of the community. 

The rise in the moral scale of an unre- 
generate newcomer begins by his turning 
from the doing of wrong for policy's sake 
to doing right for policy's sake. From that 
safe if somewhat mundane starting-point 
he is led gradually upward and onward by 
the forces about him, with of course many 
flounderings and back-slidings, until finally 
he reaches the high ethical plane of doing 
right for its own sake. To some, of course, 
this highest plane is unattainable. No in- 
fluences can develop in a person something 
which is not there to be developed. The 
influences which bring about these gradual 
ethical transformations are: first, the self- 

109 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

respect which comes through self-support; 
second, the sense of responsibility which 
comes through the exercise of the functions 
of citizenship; third, the awakened con- 
science which comes through ethical and 
religious instruction; and, fourth, the in- 
spiration of the friendship of the best kind 
of men and women. 

The working of these forces was strik- 
ingly shown in the case of Sneider, the 
thrice elected President, because with him 
there appeared to be nothing upon which 
to build. At first he appeared to have no 
sense of the difference between right and 
wrong. A few weeks after his election to 
the Presidency, he came to Mr. George 
and said, "Daddy, I'm goin' to leave." 

"Why," said Mr. George, "you're not 
going to lie down on your job as President, 
are you? What's the meaning of this? 
Why are you going to leave?" 

"No, Daddy, I don't want to be a quit- 
ter, but I got to make my way an' I can 
get a good job in a grocery store if I take 
it now, and Mr. Derrick (the Superin- 
tendent) has give me permission to go an' 
take it." 

110 



A REPUBLIC BECOMES A DEMOCRACY 

Accordingly Sneider left, took the posi- 
tion, and shortly joined a mission church 
in the city where he was working. Finding 
him a strong leader, the superintendent of 
the Sunday school gave him a class of 
young toughs who were the terrors of the 
school. They were as submissive as kittens 
under Sneider's leadership. One night he 
turned the class into a kind of experience 
meeting. He said to the boys, "Now, you 
kids has all done things as you know you 
had n't oughter done. Now, every one of 
ye stand up and spit it out. There ain't no 
use tryin' to live good till you got the bad 
tings you done off your chest. Come on 
now, kids, an' spit it out, an' den cut it 
out!" Straightway, every youngster pres- 
ent "spit it out," and promised "to cut it 
out." 

A day or two after this experience meet- 
ing, Mr. George was walking through the 
Republic about dusk when a hand was 
placed on his arm, and, wheeling round, 
he saw Sneider standing before him in 
great embarrassment. 

"Well, what's the meaning of this, 
Dick?" he asked. 

Ill 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

"Come round to the jail to-morrow 
mornin' an' I '11 tell ye all about it, Daddy. 
Now, I 'm goin' down to Bouty's to get a 
warrant for my own arrest." 

This was the story he told Mr. George 
in his cell the next morning. A week or two 
after his election as President, he had com- 
mitted a crime. The temptation was tre- 
mendous. There was practically no possi- 
bility of his being found out. Old habits 
momentarily reasserted themselves. After 
this act, the honor and respect which his 
fellow citizens paid him as their President 
became intolerable. He had partially suc- 
ceeded in his new surroundings in quieting 
his conscience, when the experience meeting 
came and undid all his efforts. In conclud- 
ing his story he said, "I knew as I could n't 
never look dem kids in the face again till 
I had spit it out, same as I made them, an* 
come back an ' took my medicine." After 
the expiration of his term in jail, Sneider 
so thoroughly regained the confidence of 
his fellow citizens as to be twice again 
elected President. 

People very naturally ask, "What are 
the results of the Republic training? Do 

112 



A REPUBLIC BECOMES A DEMOCRACY 

the citizens make good in later life?" There 
are among the ex-citizens, as one says in 
telling fortunes, "rich men, poor men, 
beggar men, thieves; doctors, lawyers, 
merchants, priests." Fortunately the beg- 
gar men and thieves are in a very small 
minority. Beside doctors, lawyers, and 
ministers there are a large percentage of 
civil engineers, architects, musicians, libra- 
rians, teachers, mechanics, farmers, trained 
nurses, and stenographers. Not only are 
most of them doing better than the aver- 
age in their business or professional work, 
but practically all of them are taking an 
active part in the civic life of their various 
communities. Every one of them is an 
independent in politics. The following 
figures are based upon a tabulation of the 
first seven hundred and eighty-seven boys 
and girls to pass through the Republic. 

The first group is figured on the basis of 
intimate knowledge. In this group there 
are: — 



Boys 




Girls 




Excellent 


31 


Excellent 


26 


Good 


131 


Good 


94 


Fair 


78 


Fair 


46 


Bad 


23 


Bad 


12 



113 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

While Mr. George is not in intimate 
touch with those in the second group, he 
feels reasonably safe in assigning them to 
the following classifications. 



Boys 
Good 85 


Girls 
Good 45 


Fair 60 


Fair 20 


Bad 10 


Bad 11 


r combining both 


groups we get:- 


Boys 
Excellent 31 


Girls 
Excellent 26 


Good 216 


Good 139 


Fair 138 


Fair 66 


Bad 33 


Bad 23 



Of the remainder 22 have died, and 93 
are unaccounted for. 

Combining boys and girls we get: — 

Excellent 57 

Good 355 

Fair 204 

Bad 56 

By the ordinary method of computation 
used by institutions which record all former 
charges as successes who are not positive 
failures, we see that over two thirds of the 
ex-citizens would be rated as successful. 

114 



A REPUBLIC BECOMES A DEMOCRACY 

During the last dozen years the Junior 
Republic idea has grown from a single 
community at Freeville, New York, into a 
great and growing movement already 
established in six States of the Union and 
in one foreign country. The second Re- 
public, the William T. Carter Junior 
Republic, was established by Mrs. William 
T. Carter, in memory of her husband, at 
Redington, Pennsylvania, in 1899. The 
pioneer colony of citizens and helpers set 
out from Freeville in the spring of that 
year. In the fall of the same year a group 
of Washington and Baltimore people, who 
had for some years closely studied the Free- 
ville Republic, founded one of their own at 
Annapolis Junction, Maryland, which is 
known as the National Junior Republic. 
In April, 1905, a group of the junior citi- 
zens from Freeville, that is, those below the 
voting age, which is sixteen, set out for 
Litchfield, Connecticut, where they started 
the George Junior Republic of Connecticut 
on a farm left for the purpose by Miss 
Emily Buell, of Litchfield. Three years 
later the National Association of Junior 
Republics was formed. The original Re- 

115 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

public at Freeville, the Carter Republic, 
the National Republic, and the Litchfield 
Republic made up the nucleus of this organ- 
ization. 

That same year, a pioneer party from 
Freeville landed in Southern California 
and founded at Chino the California George 
Junior Republic. In 1909 another party of 
pioneers went from Freeville to Grove City, 
Pennsylvania, where they established the 
George Junior Republic of Western Penn- 
sylvania. A year later another band of 
colonists went from Freeville to Fleming- 
ton Junction, New Jersey, and founded there 
the New Jersey George Junior Republic. 

In March 1912 the Strawbridge George 
Junior Republic, with a group of girl pio- 
neer citizens, was established under the 
auspices of Mrs. Strawbridge-Rrophy at 
Moorestown, New Jersey. A similar com- 
munity has just been established in Eng- 
land under the auspices of Mr. George 
Montague on a farm given for the purpose 
by his uncle, the Earl of Sandwich. This will 
probably be known as the " Junior Com- 
monwealth," and the association maintain- 
ing it will, in all probability, be in some 

116 



A REPUBLIC BECOMES A DEMOCRACY 

manner affiliated with the national organi- 
zation in this country. 

It is the purpose of the National Associa- 
tion of Junior Republics to act as a clearing- 
house of information and advice for all 
existing Republics, to maintain a training- 
school for prospective citizens and helpers 
to focus and guide the Republic movement 
and eventually to establish at least one such 
community in every State of the Union. 1 

It is comparatively easy to start Junior 
Republics and to secure for them the 
requisite backing. It is very difficult to 
find the right kind of people to direct the 
work. It is easy to find boys and girls 
capable of governing themselves. It is 
difficult to find adults who have the requi- 
site faith and breadth of vision to allow 
them to do so in fact as well as in name. 
The art of running a Junior Republic is 
not to run it at all. This is a difficult art to 
learn, and hence the necessity of the train- 
ing school where it is taught under the 
supervision of the originator of the Re- 
public idea. 

1 Mr. George is the National Director of the Association. The 
office of the Secretary is in New York City. 



CHAPTER VI 

GIRL CITIZENS 

The generally accepted theory that there 
should be absolute or nearly absolute sepa- 
ration of the sexes between the ages of 
fifteen and twenty-one Mr. George brands 
as not only a mistake, but a crime. It is 
contrary to nature. It creates an abnormal 
and dangerous sex consciousness. Hence 
there is no such segregation in the Junior 
Republics. The girls live in separate cot- 
tages, but except for that, they mingle as 
freely with the boys as in any town where 
the moral tone is high without being prud- 
ish. They work together in the schools. 
They serve together in the Government. 
They sit together in the Chapel. They 
dance together in the gymnasium. The 
boys give parties in their cottages to which 
they invite the girls, and the girls give 
parties in their cottages to which they 
invite the boys. Both in work and play 

118 



GIRL CITIZENS 

there is between them a spontaneous com- 
radeship. 

There is a girl problem as well as a boy 
problem, and when the girl becomes a prob- 
lem, hers is the more difficult. While in 
general it may be claimed about girls as 
about boys that there are no good girls and 
no bad girls, the extremes in the case of 
girls are much further apart. The nursery 
rhyme, "There was a little girl who had a 
little curl, 5 ' etc., naively expresses a bio- 
logical truth. This tendency to extremes 
may be traced to the conditions and tra- 
ditions which have surrounded the sex 
from immemorial times. It is the product 
of sex heredity. Civilization has always 
been dominated by men. In its relation to 
women it has been as full of strange para- 
doxes and violent antitheses as have been 
the relations of individual men to individ- 
ual women. Just as one man beats his wife 
as a slave while another worships his be- 
yond all human creatures, so civilization 
has alternately abused woman as a down- 
trodden beast of burden, or sport of men's 
passions, and all but worshiped her as a 
human divinity. Is it any wonder that an 

119 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

immemorial sex heredity of such extreme 
vicissitudes should have produced a sex 
tendency to extremes? 

While a relatively few favored girls are 
rationally protected by their parents, very 
many more are driven into danger by 
the harshness of well-meant protection. 
Others are brought up in surroundings 
which while not vicious are viciously arti- 
ficial. They are saturated with false con- 
ceptions of life. Their sense of values is 
warped by artificial standards. By such 
parents the Bible teaching has in effect 
been thus inverted, "What doth it profit a 
man to save his own soul, if he cannot keep 
up appearances/' Still other girls whose 
parents are easygoing are protected in 
theory rather than in fact. But the most 
significant fact is the constantly increasing 
number who early leave their homes to go 
into industrial, commercial, or professional 
life and are thrown entirely upon their own 
resources both for support and protection. 
Whether this is a good or an evil tendency 
is a merely academic question. It is an 
unalterable condition and must be faced as 
such* 

120 



GIRL CITIZENS 

To separate the sexes is to create con- 
ditions entirely unnatural and abnormal. 
To teach them to live together without 
prudery, on the one hand, or licentious- 
ness, on the other, is to solve instead of 
evading one of the most difficult problems 
of life. Is there not grave danger in allow- 
ing boys and girls to mingle together so 
freely? Of course there is. Is there not 
some sex trouble as a result? Of course, 
there is. One hundred per cent of success 
is not to be expected in this world in solv- 
ing any problem, much less the most diffi- 
cult one to which human nature is heir. 
Were the boys and girls separated the solu- 
tion of this problem would not even be 
attempted. As it is, it is frankly faced and 
successfully solved in about ninety-nine 
cases out of one hundred. While the dan- 
gers of congregation are great they are not 
as great, measured in terms of the welfare 
of the individual, as the dangers of segre- 
gation. In too many cases such dangers 
are measured in terms of the welfare of an 
institution, which is a very different matter. 

Obviously the Republic training is par- 
ticularly valuable to girls who have their 

121 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

way to make in the world. The majority 
of the Republic girls have been thrown 
practically on their own resources. Some 
of them are orphans with too much spirit 
to be willing to be supported by friends or 
relatives. Others would be far better off 
were they orphans. To escape a dissolute 
father or mother is the reason many a girl 
enters a Junior Republic. The great major- 
ity of such girls have not only made fine 
records as workers and citizens while in 
the Republics, but have been successful 
after leaving. 

One such girl at the age of sixteen dis- 
covered to her horror that her mother was 
a prostitute. She left home at once and 
got a place as a servant. Two years later 
she heard of the Freeville Republic, visited 
it, and entered as a citizen. After she had 
been there some weeks she asked permission 
to enter her younger sister, "no questions 
asked/' provided she could get hold of her. 
The authorities had faith in her and con- 
sented. She thereupon induced her younger 
sister to run away from home also, and 
brought her to the Republic. The mother 
was, of course, highly incensed and threat- 

122 



GIRL CITIZENS 

ened to use legal means to get back the 
younger daughter. The older girl threat- 
ened a eountersuit, for which she had such 
evidence that the mother was only too glad 
to let the matter drop. The sisters had 
happy and successful careers in the Repub- 
lic and both graduated from the high school. 
The older one is now a trained nurse and 
the younger a teacher. This is a typical 
rather than an exceptional case. 

In one of the early elections at the Free- 
ville Republic a certain girl was about to 
deposit her ballot in the ballot box when 
she was challenged by one of the boy candi- 
dates. The election was a close one and 
this boy happened to know that she was 
going to vote against him. He challenged 
her vote on the ground that women were 
not permitted to vote in New York State, 
and that since the Republic had no law on 
the subject, the State law held. This was 
made a test case in the Republic Court 
and the Court upheld the boy's contention. 
Thereupon, both this girl's ballot and the 
ballots of all the other girls were thrown out. 

Max Brown, one of the newly elected 
members of the Legislature, was much 

123 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

incensed at this exclusion of the girls from 
the suffrage which up to that time they 
had exercised as a matter of course. He 
announced to the girls that he would intro- 
duce a bill giving them the ballot. True to 
his word he introduced such a bill and 
stoutly defended it with the familiar suf- 
frage arguments. Doty, the lad who had 
challenged the vote of the girl who was 
against him, and a fellow Senator by the 
name of Reed bitterly opposed the measure 
in the Senate, but it was carried by a ma- 
jority of one. It needed only the Presi- 
dent's signature to become a law. Senator 
Doty drew Senator Reed one side and 
whispered, "That bill must never become 
a law, for if it does we are done for politic- 
ally. We've got to get busy and see that 
the girls have a change of sentiment before 
it reaches the President, because I know 
he'll sign it if he thinks the girls really 
want to vote." 

The two young politicians racked their 
brains until finally Reed said, "I have it. 
We'll call a mass meeting of the girls an* 
tell 'em it's unladylike to vote. That'll 



scare 'em." 



124 



GIRL CITIZENS 

They then went to a few of the leading 
spirits among the girls and said very con- 
fidentially, "We want to see just a few of 
you leading girls in the chapel tent in an 
hour from now. No boys are to be ad- 
mitted." 

At the appointed time every girl in the 
Republic was there and the police had a 
lively time to keep the boys out. Reed 
mounted the platform and said, "Now, 
girls, we wanted to say a few things to you 
which we did n't want published to the 
whole place, so we kept the boys out. Of 
course we realize it 's quite natural that you 
should think you 9 d like to vote, but there 's 
one thing which you must certainly have 
overlooked. If you had given the matter 
second thought we know that you would 
have realized it. I'll tell you a secret." 
And lowering his voice to a loud whisper 
he said, "It isn't ladylike to vote!" He 
continued with an adroit presentation of 
some of the stock arguments against 
woman's suffrage and concluded with this 
appeal, "Senator Doty has two sisters here 
in this Republic to-day, and he has told 
me, upon his word of honor as a gentleman, 

125 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

that it would give him the deepest morti- 
fication to see his two sisters compelled to 
walk up to the polling-place and vote just 
like they was boys. Oh, girls! as one who 
is deeply interested in your welfare and 
that of this whole Republic, I most earn- 
estly urge you to draw up a petition to the 
President to veto the suffrage bill and so 
protect you from being obliged to do any- 
thing so unladylike as to vote." 

The girls appeared confused for a mo- 
ment, when one of the leaders among them 
got up and said, " Girls, if Senator Doty 
and Senator Reed don't think it's nice for 
us to vote, there must be something to it 
because there are n't any citizens in the 
whole Republic that knows what's what 
more than what they do. So I think we 
ought to take their advice in this." 

This carried the majority. Paper and 
writing materials were produced, the peti- 
tion framed and signed within the next few 
minutes. Half a dozen or more rebels 
stoutly refused to sign and were treated 
with appropriate scorn by the other girls 
for their unladylike behavior. Three girls 
were appointed a committee to wait upon 

126 



GIRL CITIZENS 

the President with the petition. They 
found him almost in the act of signing the 
bill. Reading the petition over carefully 
he said, "I was just going to make this bill 
a law, but seeing that you girls don't really 
want to vote, after all, I'll veto it." 

A few weeks later there was a new elec- 
tion for legislators, and both Doty and 
Reed were returned to the Senate. A ques- 
tion of taxation came up and Reed proposed 
that each industrial class, as the basis of 
representation, be obliged to raise a fixed 
and equal sum. The boys' industrial 
classes were carpentering, farming, and 
landscape gardening. The girls' were cook- 
ing, dressmaking, and millinery. The boys 
averaged thirty to a class, while the girls 
had only fifteen. Obviously under this 
arrangement the girls were to pay twice as 
much per capita in taxes as the boys. In 
spite of its injustice, or possibly because 
of it, the bill was rushed through the Legis- 
lature and signed by the President. 

Filled with righteous indignation some 
of the leading girls sought out Senator 
Brown, who had introduced the suffrage 
bill, and burst out, "This new law is un- 

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CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

just! Doty and Reed are just as mean as 
they can be! They pretended to be our 
friends and then went an 5 got this law 
passed that makes us pay double taxes." 

"Well, girls," remarked Brown, "it 
strikes me it serves you right! If you'd let 
the President sign my bill giving you the 
right to vote you could have defeated Doty 
and Reed for reelection. But now it 's too 
late. You must pay your taxes or go to jail." 

"You bet it serves them right!" cho- 
rused the half-dozen rebels who had refused 
to sign the anti-suffrage petition. 

Then the very girl who had taken the 
initiative in getting the petition signed 
stepped forward and said, "You are right, 
Brown. We have acted like fools same as 
lots of women in the Big Republic have. 
But can't we just be honest and admit they 
fooled us and try again to get the vote? 
Won't you forgive us and go an 5 make an- 
other of your nice speeches an' get another 
bill through for us? You may tell 'em we 
were fools an' now we know it, and that 
we want a chance at Doty and Reed and 
the others as voted for that mean tax bill 
the next time they run for office." 

128 



GIRL CITIZENS 

Brown consented to champion their 
cause again. Using the manifest injustice 
of the tax law as his chief argument, he 
got a suffrage bill passed by a big majority 
and signed by the President. 

During the early years of the Republic 
there was a law that all special laws should 
automatically pass out of existence on the 
last day of each year. On New Year's Day 
such of these laws as commanded the ap- 
proval of the majority would be voted 
back on to the statute books. The girls' 
suffrage law went out of existence in this 
way at the close of the year and was not 
reenacted. The next spring, as was the 
custom in the early years of the Republic, 
over a hundred boys and girls came up 
from New York to spend the summer. 
They were called "summer citizens." The 
two political parties of this period were 
known as the "People's Party" and the 
"Free Tin Party." The two chief planks 
in the platform of the People's Party were 
"sound money" and "votes for girls." 
The Free Tin Party advocated "the free 
and unlimited coinage of tin money" and 
opposed "votes for girls." The plausible 

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CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

political promises of something for nothing 
made by the adroit leaders of the Free Tin 
Party won to their side the great majority 
of the summer citizens, and hence they 
won at the polls. The Free Tin Party 
plunged the Government into bankruptcy 
and the Republic Association had to step 
in, practically as a receiver, until the little 
commonwealth was again on a sound finan- 
cial basis. 

The "votes for girls" advocates naturally 
made political capital out of the disas- 
trous failure for which their opponents 
were responsible. And after the summer 
citizens had left, the girls' suffrage bill 
was reenacted by a two-thirds vote of all 
the boy voters. The last day of the year 
it again passed out of existence, and on 
New Year's Day again failed of reenact- 
ment. It was some time before the girls 
again won the vote. During this time, how- 
ever, they kept up a continual agitation. 
Finally they added to their demand for 
the right to vote a demand for a girl Judge 
and a girl District Attorney to handle all 
cases in which girls only were involved. 
This proved a popular measure and was 

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GIRL CITIZENS 

almost unanimously passed by the Legis- 
lature in which, of course, boys only sat. 
Even the boy who had always most bit- 
terly opposed girls' suffrage voted for this 
bill, but in so doing he said, "I want it 
understood right straight, and I want this 
statement to go in the minutes, that while 
I do think it 's all right for there to be a girl 
Judge and District Attorney for girls' 
cases, that does n't mean that I 'm begin- 
ning to be in favor of the girls voting, be- 
cause I am not, and I '11 fight that always 
every time I get a chance." 

As time went on and the Government 
became better established and its policies 
more settled, the majority of the citizens 
came to feel that they would like to have 
the special laws remain on the statute 
books until repealed instead of having 
them automatically expire on the last day 
of each year. Accordingly they began to 
agitate amending the Constitution to this 
effect. At once the boys who believed in 
girls' suffrage let it be known that they 
would never vote for such an amendment 
unless a girls' suffrage clause was also in- 
serted. By this time the town meeting 

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CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

had been substituted for the Legislature. 
A constitutional amendment could be 
passed by a two-thirds vote of all the boy 
citizens assembled in town meeting. At 
length an election occurred in which "Votes 
for Girls' ' was the sole issue. After a stir- 
ring contest, in which the girls campaigned 
vigorously for the champions of their 
cause, the suffrage candidates were elected. 
They at once Redeemed their platform 
pledge and secured the suffrage amend- 
ment. 

From that day to this there has always 
been a group of girls actively engaged in 
the political life of the Republic, and this 
group has practically always been found 
on the side of good government when there 
has been an alignment on ethical questions. 
On the other hand, a large percentage of the 
girls have neither attended the town meet- 
ings nor shown any interest in public ques- 
tions. These indifferent girls have been a 
source of constant exasperation to their 
more public-spirited sisters. 

One of the girls active in the Govern- 
ment once introduced a bill in a town 
meeting that failure to vote without an 

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GIRL CITIZENS 

adequate excuse should constitute a misde- 
meanor. In speaking to her bill she said, 
"If I thought there would be any chance 
of the bill passing with the word 'felony' 
in place of 'misdemeanor/ I would put it 
in. I think any citizen who can vote, but 
won't, ought to go to jail or have his right 
to vote taken away entirely/' In conclu- 
sion she said, "I am particularly ashamed 
of the number of girls who don't vote, and 
I'm going to be honest and say that the 
reason I am specially anxious to have this 
bill pass is so's to teach them a lesson. I 
am ashamed to say that the girls are more 
regardless of the privilege of voting than 
the boys." In spite of this appeal, or per- 
haps because of it, the bill did not pass. 

For the girls to vote and hold office is 
now just as much a part of the Republic 
life as the principle of self-government it- 
self. Many girls have distinguished them- 
selves as public officials. While no girl has 
as yet filled the office of President, there 
have been several girl Vice-Presidents. In 
fact, the Vice-President ? at this writing is 
a girl. The President, the Vice-President, 
and the boy Judge make up a Board of 

133 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

Commissioners having charge of such mat- 
ters as the public health, the appointment 
and discharge of police officers and all 
officers connected with the prisons, the 
paroling of the prisoners, and their care. 
At the approach of one of these young 
Commissioners a group of sturdy prisoners, 
who have been terrors to the police outside, 
will immediately put on their best behavior. 
And if it happens to be the girl Commis- 
sioner they are no less circumspect. In 
fact, one of the boy prisoners recently re- 
marked, "We can sometimes 'shy one over* 
on the boy Commissioners, but that girl 
Commissioner knocks the spots out of 
them when it comes to having eyes all over 
her head." 

The Vice-President presides at the town 
meetings. Sometimes there is turbulence 
over an issue which stirs deep feeling and 
the chairman has to call upon the sergeant- 
at-arms or even the police to subdue some 
violent debater or unsympathetic listener. 
Never as yet has a girl presiding officer 
been obliged to call upon the police to 
assist her in keeping order. 

In short, the traditions of the inconse- 
134 




AT WORK IN THE BAKERY 




DOING BUSINESS AT THE STORE 



GIRL CITIZENS 

quence and lack of executive, business, and 
judicial ability inherent in the feminine 
mind have not stood the test of practice. 
Not only have certain girls proved as 
effective in these respects as certain boys, 
but the average efficiency among the girls 
in these directions has been as high as the 
average among the boys. As Judges their 
decisions have been as fair, as executive 
officers their leadership has been as sane 
and strong, and in their business relations 
they have been as businesslike. 

A few years ago all the ex-citizens of the 
Freeville Republic were classified into these 
four groups: Excellent, Good, Fair, and 
Bad. True to their sex tendency to ex- 
tremes a larger percentage of girls than 
boys was found in the extreme groups — 
the Excellent and the Bad. The percent- 
age of girls in these groups closely corre- 
sponded to the percentage of boys in the 
groups — Good and Fair. 

There is a type of girl, often bright and 
attractive, whose tendency to moral per- 
version appears to have completely swal- 
lowed up her self-respect. That such a girl 
is a menace in a community where boys 

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CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

and girls are together goes without saying. 
That she ought to be saved to society also 
goes without spying. Few people are will- 
ing to help her. Many will give generously 
of their time and money to help boys who 
are perverted morally, but few will lift 
a hand for girls with these tendencies. 
Women are even more uncharitable toward 
such girls than men. There are, of course, 
exceptions, but that is the rule. 

For these girls segregation is as neces- 
sary as congregation for those who are 
normal. But as they cannot be segregated 
for life, powerful influences must be brought 
to bear upon them while they are fenced 
off from the rest of humanity. The first 
of these influences should be the necessity 
for self-support. If in a place where they 
must work or starve, the struggle for the 
necessities of life must necessarily fill a 
great part of their time and thought. This 
struggle should not, of course, be as hard 
as the battle of the "sweat-shop," nor 
should it, on the other hand, be made too 
easy. It should be made possible for the 
workers to advance as they become skilled, 
from the winning of the mere necessities of 

136 



GIRL CITIZENS 

life to luxuries and a bank account. They 
should govern themselves as completely as 
do the citizens of a Junior Republic. In 
short, their community should be a girls' 
commonwealth, of girls, for girls, and by 
girls. 

Before leaving their community alto- 
gether these girls should go, accompanied 
by their housemothers, to the services of 
the neighboring village church and they 
should attend the village entertainments of 
the higher order. They should, of course, 
have entertainments and social affairs in 
their own community, to which not only 
ladies, but gentlemen of all ages should be 
invited. Such guests as well as the regular 
helpers should have it impressed upon them 
that it was not only their duty but a high 
privilege to help these young women to 
adjust themselves to society in a natural 
and normal way. This kind of healthful 
contact with the outside world should be 
gradually increased as the time for leaving 
the community approaches, in order that 
the transition from their own little com- 
monwealth to the great one shall be as 
much as possible a natural evolution. Cer- 

137 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

tainly under such conditions all girls who 
had in them any capacity, however deeply 
buried, for leading normal lives could 
eventually be reinstated in society. As 
soon as he can secure the requisite financial 
backing and a woman with the great qual- 
ities which such a work would demand, 
Mr, George hopes to establish a community 
of this kind. 



CHAPTER VII 

EVERY BOY LIKE EVERY OTHER 

Boys of all classes and conditions of society 
the world over have the same general char- 
acteristics. The benevolent person who 
assumes that all normal boys are good 
makes as great a mistake as the vindictive 
person who assumes that they are all bad. 
They are neither the one nor the other. 
The term "angelic savages' ' aptly de- 
scribes them. No normal boy with freedom 
of choice ever confines himself to a set or 
class of society. He has companions from 
homes representing the most various and 
widely divergent standards of wealth, cul- 
ture, education, and lineage. These com- 
panions he rates entirely by their personal 
qualities without regard to the social stand- 
ing of their families. Neither riches nor 
poverty, religion, politics, or nationality, 
and in many instances not even color, 
raises the grim spectre of prejudice. Nor- 
mal boys are natural democrats. They are 

139 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

democratic by instinct, not by principle. 
The gardener's son may be respected or 
despised by the son of his employer, but 
whether he is respected or despised will 
depend upon himself rather than upon his 
father's social status. 

As is well known, hero-worship is a dom- 
inant characteristic among boys. Their 
heroes among themselves are mainly of two 
kinds — those brilliant in play, and those 
who have the qualities of dare-devil leader- 
ship. The joker is a minor hero hardly 
worthy of a place beside the other two. 
But when a boy combines the attributes of 
all three, he is not only sure to be a great 
leader of boys, but he is practically sure to 
become a great leader of men. Whether he 
becomes a great general, a great statesman, 
or a great criminal will depend upon the 
conditions and opportunities which sur- 
round him. 

If you were to go into a playground and 
ask any number of the boys what they were 
going to do when they grew up, most of 
them would probably reply that they did 
not know or had not decided. If, however, 
you asked them what they would like to do, 

140 



EVERY BOY LIKE EVERY OTHER 

and succeeded in winning their confidence, 
they would tell you that they wanted to be 
soldiers, sailors, policemen, firemen, engi- 
neers, aviators, or in some occupation in- 
volving action and physical danger. Prob- 
ably not one would express a wish to be a 
teacher, physician, lawyer, or clergyman. 
Spectacular exploits of physical prowess 
and deeds of dramatic daring fill the imagi- 
nations and dominate the aspirations of 
most boys. Their heroes in history are not 
the framers of constitutions nor the ora- 
tors, but the men who have stormed bat- 
teries and faced violent death in every 
form. They admire Alexander Hamilton, 
for instance, not because he organized our 
national banking system, but because he 
was a brave soldier and dared to face 
Aaron Burr in a duel. 

Boys demand in their heroes the primi- 
tive virtues. They must have great physi- 
cal prowess, they must be physically brave 
to the point of foolhardiness, and they 
must be loyal unto death to their friends 
and companions. As a result of these primi- 
tive standards, all manner of rogues, rob- 
bers, outlaws, and bandits take their place 

141 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

in the boy's gallery of heroes to the exclu- 
sion of many real heroes, who, while they 
may not lack elemental virtues, have little 
or no occasion for their display. How many 
worthy gentlemen, pillars of law and order, 
felt in their boyhood days a secret sym- 
pathy for Jesse James? Did they not feel 
a thrill of exultation every time the intrepid 
outlaw eluded the authorities? If he must 
be caught at last, they wanted him to be 
shot down in his tracks with his " boots on " 
after a terrible slaughter of sheriffs and 
deputy sheriffs. Tom Sawyer and Huckle- 
berry Finn are perennially true to boy 
nature. They are not nice boys nor good 
boys nor bad boys — they are just boys. 

Boys instinctively organize into gangs 
in the city and into bands in the country. 
Mr. George was himself an active member 
of a predatory band known as the Red 
Brotherhood. Strapped to his belt under- 
neath his coat he carried a worn-out pistol 
which, had he ever attempted to discharge 
it, would have been much more likely to 
kill him than any one else. The Red 
Brotherhood, like many other similar organ- 
izations, use to have never-to-be-forgotten 

142 



EVERY BOY LIKE EVERY OTHER 

secret meetings, midnight raids, and imag- 
inary hair's-breadth escapes from terrible 
dangers. All the neighboring apple or- 
chards, grape arbors, and strawberry 
patches were at one time or another 
swooped down upon and denuded by this 
band, in the councils of which the young 
William R. George had great weight. A 
certain Judge, in making a plea for the 
admission of a boy to the George Junior 
Republic, once said, "I feel a personal 
interest in this young man. When he was 
brought before me the other day for rob- 
bing an apple orchard, I discovered on in- 
vestigation that it was the same orchard 
which I once robbed. 5 ' Were Mr. George 
and the Judge young criminals? Hardly! 
— but doubtless they both had strong 
criminal tendencies which could have been 
developed. 

Another characteristic of boys is an in- 
stinctive rebellion against laws in the mak- 
ing of which they have no share. This feel- 
ing, however, is not peculiar to boys. In 
most of us the "Thou shalt not" quickly 
arouses the "I will." Who has not had an 
impulse to walk on the grass quickened by 

143 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

a sign, "Keep off the grass"? Mark Twain 
tells of standing quietly beside Niagara 
Falls contemplating the beauties of nature 
when suddenly he noticed a sign which 
read, "Throw no rocks. Dangerous to 
those beneath." He says he was at once 
seized with an almost irresistible impulse to 
hurl great rocks over the precipice and then 
tremblingly await the cries of the maimed 
victims beneath. 

Curiosity is another trait which is not 
only common to boys, but to all humanity, 
and one which is closely related to the in- 
stinct of rebellion against arbitrary author- 
ity. Few people can see a " No admittance " 
sign upon a building or door without feel- 
ing a vagrant impulse to penetrate the 
mystery. A line of perhaps a dozen men in 
single file once walked up Broadway carry- 
ing signs on poles high above their heads. 
Each sign read, "Don't look at my back!" 
On each back was the inscription, "Go to 
K's to buy your shirts!" Mr. George fol- 
lowed this procession for two blocks and in 
that distance only two persons failed to 
disobey the injunction, "Don't look at my 
back! " One of these was an old gentleman 

144 



EVERY BOY LIKE EVERY OTHER 

with double spectacles and the other was a 
wild-eyed individual frantically absorbed 
in a conversation with himself. Mr. George 
says, "I shall forget many things I ought to 
remember, but I shall never forget to go to 
K's to buy my shirts." The advertiser who 
sent this procession up Broadway was a 
practical psychologist. 

When wise parents, teachers, and friends 
say, "Don't smoke," "Don't drink," and 
"Don't read dime novels," the impulse to 
do each of these things irresistibly bobs up 
in the mind of the normal boy. The im- 
pulse is not born of "pure cussedness." It 
is not because parents and teachers dis- 
approve. It is out of curiosity to see what 
these much-talked-of sins can be like. Just 
as adults crowd into court-rooms to see 
notorious criminals, so boys want to experi- 
ence the notorious wrongs against which 
they are warned. 

Bundle these characteristics together 
and put them into a boy full of health and 
energy and turn him loose in a community 
where he has no responsibility either for 
the making and enforcement of the laws or 
for his own support, and he is sure to make 

145 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

matters uncomfortably lively for the law- 
abiding and the law-enforcing. To such 
boys the ordinary jog-trot of everyday life 
is intolerably monotonous. They are con- 
tinually trying to make life more exciting. 
One of the most satisfying forms of excite- 
ment is to work some adult into a fury of 
impotent rage by depredations upon his 
property or insulting epithets, and then get 
him to give chase. For instance, a party of 
boys will come along and tip over a recepta- 
cle full of refuse which a street-cleaner has 
carefully gathered together. With all the 
angry threats and gesticulations essential 
to spectacular effect the street-cleaner will 
start in pursuit and in a last gasp of impo- 
tent rage throw his broom after the fleeing 
boys. From the boy's point of view the 
incident was a complete success. The 
street-cleaner could not have played his 
part better had he rehearsed it for months. 
But to be pursued by an officer of the law 
gives the most intense and satisfying thrills. 
Comparatively few boys of whatever class 
of society grow up, in cities at any rate, 
without having at least one such experience 
to enliven the tedium of ordinary life. Such 

146 



EVERY BOY LIKE EVERY OTHER 

trivial and innocent experiences as these 
are not infrequently the stepping-stones to 
serious and chronic law-breaking. 

Boys may be divided into these six 
groups : The street gang or the " hoodlums " 
(bands in the country); second, the group 
just above the gang; third, the great ma- 
jority of public-school boys; fourth, the 
boarding-school and college group; fifth, 
the sons of the rich; and sixth, the self- 
made group. With the exception of the 
self-made youths, of whom naturally there 
are relatively few, the evolution of these 
groups is very similar. The gang begins to 
disintegrate when one of its members, be- 
cause of the death of his father or for any 
other reason, has to go to work and contrib- 
ute to the support of the family. He as- 
sures "the bunch" that he will continue 
loyal and will give them all his free time. 
In spite of assurances and intentions, just 
as soon as he begins to work his ways and 
the ways of the gang begin to part. For 
a time he spends his evenings, Sundays 
and holidays with his former companions, 
but little by little he becomes less interested 
in their exploits and likewise less interest- 

147 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

ing to them. Later he marries and after 
that no longer takes part in their mischiev- 
ous or lawless acts. There follows a family 
of children with its added responsibilities. 
So far from being a model husband and 
father he may be cruel, shiftless, and in- 
temperate. Even so his responsibilities as 
husband, parent, and bread-winner, no 
matter how inadequately met, give him a 
different outlook on life. When it comes to 
a showdown he will almost surely array 
himself on the side of law and order and 
against such of his former companions as 
have continued their depredations on 
property. 

The group just above the gang or band is 
made up of the boys who are problems in 
the public schools. They are trouble- 
makers; they will not study and they are 
truants. They do, however, spend enough 
time in school, or at some work or other, so 
that they have not time to become well 
organized. Their "bunch" has a gangy 
semblance, but it is not a real gang. Such 
boys are in their dull moments sojourners 
on the borderland of respectability — a 
territory into which the real gang member 

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EVERY BOY LIKE EVERY OTHER 

never deviates. The boys in this group 
come for the most part from poor families. 
They must face the stern realities of life at 
an early age. They are frequently put to 
work by their parents as soon as the law 
permits. After they begin to work and to 
aid in the family support, their point of 
view rapidly changes. Their admiration 
for dare-deviltry and scorn of old fogies 
vanish; and, presto! they are old fogies 
themselves, although as unconscious of the 
transformation as they are oblivious of 
their former viewpoint. 

The third group is composed of the great 
majority of public-school boys. They at- 
tend school with reasonable regularity, 
learn their lessons fairly well, behave with 
tolerable decorum, and usually pass their 
examinations. They make up, in short, the 
rank and file of the hopeful youth of the 
nation. Almost all of them graduate from 
grammar schools; a large number attend 
high schools for a time; a fair proportion 
graduate from high schools; and a few go to 
college. As their parents are, for the most 
part, in moderately comfortable circum- 
stances, they do not have to meet the real- 

149 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

ities of life at so early an age. Conse- 
quently, although never so lawless as their 
fellows in the group just below, they do not 
as soon abandon the admiration of dare- 
deviltry and ally themselves with the forces 
of law and order. 

The boys of the boarding-school and col- 
lege group come, for the most part, from 
the comfortable and well-to-do homes. 
They have the same love of excitement and 
admiration for dare-deviltry as all the rest. 
Their further removal from economic pres- 
sure gives them a longer adolescence. Most 
of them do not have to face the bread-and- 
butter problem until after they have grad- 
uated from college. Up to that time most of 
them have had no real responsibilities and 
hence naturally have not become respon- 
sible. After they leave college the necessity 
for self-support, or the care of inherited 
estates, transforms their point of view from 
that of the irresponsible pleasure-seeker to 
that of the work-a-day world. Although 
they have had such prolonged boyhoods 
themselves, they soon forget the boy's 
point of view, just as do all the others. 

The boys of the fifth group, the sons of 
150 



EVERY BOY LIKE EVERY OTHER 

the rich, are usually seriously handicapped 
in their development by traditions, conven- 
tions, governesses, and tutors. They suffer 
from over-protection on the part of con- 
scientious parents who feel the great respon- 
sibility of so training them that they will 
measure up to the family traditions. They 
suffer from under-protection on the part of 
self-indulgent parents who put the pursuit 
of immediate pleasures ahead of every- 
thing else and leave the upbringing of their 
children to persons carelessly hired for the 
purpose. While fortunately there are many 
rich parents who do not fall into either the 
one or the other category, the majority un- 
doubtedly do. Even where the home con- 
ditions are ideal, there is so much artifi- 
ciality in the lives of these boys that it is 
difficult for them to recognize or under- 
stand real life. The servility with which 
they are treated by many of those with 
whom they come in contact is a subtly de- 
moralizing influence. They seldom have 
any idea of the value of money. Their 
fathers sign their names to bits of paper, 
and lo! their immediate desires are satis- 
fied. The father's bankbook is like Alad- 

151 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

din's lamp and the whole atmosphere of 
their lives is more like that of the "Arabian 
Nights 55 than real life. They come to look 
upon getting something for nothing as the 
natural order of events. 

Now, while it is commonly recognized 
that getting something for nothing is de- 
moralizing to the poor, it is not recognized 
that it is equally demoralizing to the rich. 
In his close observation of boys of all 
classes Mr. George has discovered a marked 
similarity between those of the extremely 
rich and those of the extremely poor. The 
sons of the rich are dependent upon the 
benevolence of their parents. The sons of 
the poor are dependent upon benevolent 
patrons or societies. While from the point 
of view of social conventions there is a 
world of difference between being sup- 
ported by a parent and receiving alms, 
nevertheless both groups of recipients are 
dependents. Dependence on the part of the 
physically fit, exclusive of course of young 
children, has a strong tendency to blight 
character and arrest normal development. 

Fortunately most of these fellows go 
into business shortly after leaving college. 

152 



EVERY BOY LIKE EVERY OTHER 

While they are not, of course, faced with 
the salutary alternative, — work or starve, 
— they are faced with responsibilities and 
they do in most instances come to a fairly 
speedy realization that neither inherited 
millions nor traditions of family greatness 
will win them positions of real honor and 
respect without personal industry and 
worth. After they have become immersed 
in affairs, they, like all the rest, soon forget 
the point of view of their boyhood. Natu- 
rally they are firm believers in the sanctity 
of property and property rights. 

The last and smallest but not the least 
group is that of the self-made boys who 
become the self-made men. They early 
face the hard facts of life. With the same 
tastes as other boys, they have not the 
same opportunity to indulge them. In- 
stead of committing depredations on other 
people's property as a lark, they must earn 
some of their own as a hard necessity. Jesse 
James and his ilk are no heroes to them, 
because they menace property. They early 
become the stanchest defenders of prop- 
erty rights. As they have never had the 
chance to develop the point of view of the 

153 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

boy, they naturally cannot be expected to 
understand it when they come to manhood. 
The proverbial strong qualities of the typi- 
cal self-made man are the natural result of 
the necessity for self-support and self-reli- 
ance. The proverbial unlovely qualities of 
the same type of man are the natural result 
of the unrelieved fierceness of the competi- 
tive into which he was plunged at too early 
an age. Had he had the advantage of the 
same character-building forces a little later 
and under more wholesome and less relent- 
less conditions he might have developed 
strong qualities without the undesirable 
accompanying traits, 

Mr. George has a theory, based upon 
long and close observation, as to the rela- 
tive parts played by heredity and environ- 
ment in determining the character of the 
individual. It is this: while both heredity 
and environment play an important part, 
in the case of individuals with strong will 
power heredity is not so large a factor as is 
commonly supposed. The volitions of such 
an individual are stronger than his inher- 
ited tendencies. He may at his pleasure 
rise above them, fall below them, or follow 

154 



EVERY BOY LIKE EVERY OTHER 

them. While he will inevitably show occa- 
sional gleams of hereditary traits, he can 
and will banish them whenever he so de- 
termines. With individuals of average or 
moderate will power, heredity plays a 
larger part. They are less able to resist the 
hereditary bent. Their individual choice is 
not so large a factor in determining the 
course of their lives. With weak-willed 
persons, heredity is a very large and per- 
haps in most cases the determining factor. 
Strength of will is not monopolized by any 
class or condition of society. All degrees of 
it, from the strongest to the weakest, are 
found in all sorts and conditions of families. 
The following is a hypothetical example 
of the operation of heredity and environ- 
ment. A family composed of father, 
mother, and ten boys live in a tenement in 
one of the worst sections of New York City. 
The father and mother are both intemper- 
ate and exceedingly shiftless, but not crim- 
inal. Three of the boys are in institutions 
for the feeble-minded, two are mentally 
weak but not sufficiently so to be rated as 
feeble-minded, while four of the remainder 
possess moderate and average will power. 

155 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

They are shiftless and thriftless to a marked 
degree; plainly chips of the old block. The 
tenth boy acts like a demon incarnate. He 
is vicious, a terror to the police, and the 
leader of his gang. He seems headed for 
the electric chair. An investigator comes 
across this unhappy family and thus com- 
ments upon it: "This family exemplifies 
the power of heredity in its worst aspect. 
The parents are shiftless and worthless. 
Their parents before them seem to have 
been of the same calibre. Three of the 
children are in institutions for the feeble- 
minded and two of the others ought to be. 
Four of the remaining five have average 
intelligence and might become useful and 
respectable if they could be placed in pro- 
per environment. The tenth boy is a nota- 
ble illustration of the curse of bad heredity. 
He will give much trouble to society. He 
exults in the most flagrant acts of lawless- 
ness. Although not yet fifteen years old, he 
may fairly be called a hardened and irre- 
claimable criminal." 

There lives on Beacon Street in Boston 
another family, consisting of a father, 
mother, and ten sons. The father and 

156 



EVERY BOY LIKE EVERY OTHER 

mother are typical Bostonians, proud of 
their family traditions. Naturally enough, 
none of the boys are feeble-minded. Nine 
of them show average and moderate will 
power. They grow up, graduate from Har- 
vard, and become, lawyers, bankers, and 
physicians of average prominence. The 
tenth early shows the traits of leadership. 
He is more restless and positive in his 
opinions than his brothers. His indomit- 
able will power and great ambition make 
him scorn merely average achievements. 
He enters public life, rapidly rises to a 
commanding position, and eventually 
achieves fame. He keeps his solicitous rela- 
tives continually vacillating between pride 
in his prominence and distress at his dis- 
regard of the conventions. 

Suppose the famous son of the Boston 
family and the criminal son of the slum 
family had in infancy been interchanged 
without any one's knowledge. What would 
have been the probable result? The young 
aristocrat in the slum family would have 
shown in his earliest youth a taste for books 
and other commendable inclinations. He 
would have been a star pupil in the public 

157 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

kindergarten. As he grew older, however, 
and associated more and more with the 
boys on the streets, his instinct for leader- 
ship would have demanded a vent. A gang's 
contests with other gangs and with the 
police would have furnished the most nat- 
ural and attractive outlet. His environ- 
ment would have led him into acts of a 
criminal nature. In following his gift for 
leadership and his ambition to rise above 
the common herd, he would become a 
notorious criminal. Had the investigator 
commented upon this youth in ignorance 
of his true parentage he would have cata- 
logued him as a "hardened and irreclaim- 
able criminal/' just as he did the real son 
of the worthless parents. He might even 
have added for good measure the old adage, 
"Blood will tell." 

The slum child in the Boston family 
would before long begin to make things 
lively for his unsuspecting foster parents. 
He would drive his nurses and tutors to 
desperation. He would revel in insubordi- 
nation. He would destroy and mutilate 
his books and clothes and outrage the pro- 
prieties. A little later he would become a 

158 



EVERY BOY LIKE EVERY OTHER 

leader in mischief and the hero of the boys 
in the neighborhood. He would get into 
all kinds of scrapes. In some of the more 
serious he might only escape arrest and im- 
prisonment through the good offices of his 
exasperated but loyal foster father. After 
his school and college days were over, how- 
ever, and he had come into the responsi- 
bilities of life, his ability for leadership and 
absorbing ambition would begin to show 
themselves in very different ways. He 
would very probably go into public life, 
rise rapidly to a commanding position, 
and eventually win fame. Again people 
would wag their heads and sagely remark, 
"Blood will tell!" 

If any of the other boys of the Boston 
family, those of average or moderate will 
power, were placed in the slum family, 
they would show bookish tendencies in 
early childhood which would probably con- 
tinue throughout their lives. They would 
take only a half-hearted interest in the 
vigorous activities of the street gangs. 
They would be respectable and docile and 
would eventually become clerks in depart- 
ment stores and conscientious users of the 

159 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

public free libraries. They would never 
sink to the depths of depravity of their 
strong-willed brother. Now, the children 
of the slum family of moderate will power 
if placed in the Boston family would not be 
bad as children. They would be merely 
lazy, neglectful of their studies, and care- 
less in the care of their clothing and their 
persons. In short, because of their only 
moderate will power they would follow 
their heredity bent without being much 
influenced by their environment. They 
would grow up to be inferior, indolent, but 
respectable members of society. 

Right here it may be asked, How is it 
that persons of moderate and even weak 
will have won fame? Because of their acci- 
dental possession of some remarkable apti- 
tude or genius for achievement in a particu- 
lar direction. Aptitude, or genius, which 
is aptitude raised to its highest power, 
is like will power an insoluble mystery. 
When genius happens to lodge in a weak- 
willed person he follows its impulse just as 
he would follow an enslaving vice. Like 
the vice it is the line of least resistance and 
he follows it with a passionate enthusiasm. 

160 



EVERY BOY LIKE EVERY OTHER 

Will power is, in short, the controlling 
factor in the development of the individual 
- — the common denominator between the 
two forces of heredity and environment. It 
can to some extent be developed by train- 
ing. The development of right habits of 
thought and action can raise the degree 
of an individual's will power from weak to 
moderate, and from moderate to average, 
and from average to strong. On the other 
hand, probably no person originally of weak 
will could so cultivate what he had as ulti- 
mately to have a strong will. 

From the foregoing these general con- 
clusions may be drawn: — 

First, all normal boys have in common 
certain general characteristics. 

Second, certain allowance should be made 
for individuality and mode of life, but not 
too much. 

Third, when boys sound in mind and 
body commit lawless acts, society makes a 
dangerous blunder in declaring "that class " 
of youth to be different from others. 

Fourth, all normal boys, including "that 
class,'' would derive inestimable benefit 
from spending a few years in a village in 

161 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

which the government was conducted by 
themselves, and where the conditions, eco- 
nomic, civic, and social, were the same as 
in an ordinary village. 

Fifth, all boys for whom this is imprac- 
ticable should be given opportunity to 
share in the fullest extent possible (and 
that means a very full extent) in the man- 
agement of their own affairs in their school 
or clubs, or in whatever groups they may 
be gathered together for recreation, refor- 
mation, or instruction. Prior to the winter 
of 1911 Mr. George would not have sub- 
scribed to this last proposition. Up to that 
time he had assumed that there must be an 
economic basis for effective self-govern- 
ment. As a result of personal investigation 
of certain schools having methods of pupil 
self-government, Mr. George came to the 
conclusion that organized public opinion, 
even without an economic basis, was in 
itself a powerful enough force to make self- 
government effective. Since then he has 
been as keen an advocate of self-govern- 
ment in general as of the type of self-gov- 
ernment exemplified in Junior Republics. 



CHAPTER VIII 

CHARACTER THROUGH RESPONSIBILITY 

Suppose a constitutional amendment were 
enacted raising the voting age from twenty- 
one to twenty-five years. There would be 
a howl of protest from the youths over 
twenty-one but under twenty-five. They 
would claim quite justly that they were as 
capable of exercising the full powers of 
citizenship as men of twenty-five. For that 
matter a lusty and intelligent youth of 
eighteen is as capable as one of twenty-one. 
The average youth of eighteen is usually 
more independent in thought and less in- 
fluenced by ulterior considerations than his 
father. In most cases the father's occupa- 
tion has forced him into a rut; he is less 
open-minded and more timid in his outlook 
on life. The youth also is apt to be sur- 
rounded by higher influences in school than 
is his father in business. The father is 
prone to look upon political leaders and 
policies too much from the point of view of 

163 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

how they will affect him and his business — 
the son more from the point of view of 
the general welfare or what he believes to 
be the general welfare. 

The principal of a high school in Cali- 
fornia recently submitted to the boys of 
the school a list of questions on current po- 
litical issues. The answers showed that the 
boys had a surprisingly comprehensive and 
intelligent grasp of the political situation, 
both local and national. The Principal 
then succeeded in having the same ques- 
tions addressed to a typical group of busi- 
ness men in the same city. Their answers 
were surprisingly unintelligent and showed 
that they had very little grasp of the sit- 
uation either local or national. For in- 
stance, one of the men, in answer to a 
question as to what office a well-known 
fellow townsman was a candidate for, re- 
plied that he knew he was a candidate 
for "Congress," but as to whether it was 
the "State Congress" or the "Congress 
at Washington" he did not know. 

One of the palpable follies of our system 
of government is the legal fiction which re- 
gards as infants sturdy and intelligent 

164 



RESPONSIBILITY 

youths in their late teens. Most self- 
respecting people resent arbitrary author- 
ity; their natural reaction is open rebellion 
or secret evasion. The "adult minors" are 
in somewhat that position in relation to the 
rest of us. Especially to such as have good 
red blood in their veins, laws are the arbi- 
trary exactions of elderly people, to be 
obeyed when necessary and evaded when 
possible. Whether they live in luxury upon 
the bounty of rich parents or as hoboes 
upon the precarious bounty of society, 
they have in either case no responsibilities 
either of self-government or of self-support. 
Accordingly they are free to devote their 
time to adding to the anxieties of their 
elders who have chosen to monopolize all 
the responsibilities of life. For adults to 
resist laws in the making and enforcing of 
which they have no voice is commonly re- 
garded as commendable and even heroic. 
Many of our progenitors so thought and 
so acted at the time of the "Boston Tea 
Party," and many of our "adult minors" 
so think and act to-day. Were it not for 
other influences which come into the lives 
of most youths between boyhood and man- 

165 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

hood, society would soon reach the "dem- 
nition bow-wows" predicted by Mr. Man- 
talini. 

As soon as the youth is faced with any 
of the real responsibilities of life, such as 
self-support or the support of others, self- 
government or the government of others, 
or even the care of large inherited wealth, 
his point of view rapidly changes. His old 
law-breaking heroes lose their glamour and 
finally he comes to look upon them as mere 
criminals. He wants even the most pictur- 
esque bandits promptly exterminated be- 
cause they are a menace to property and 
the stability of society in which he now has 
a stake. Laws which a short time before he 
regarded as arbitrary exactions, he now 
looks upon as useful and necessary safe- 
guards. Responsibility well met produces 
thrift, thrift produces property, and pro- 
perty is a powerful factor in the moulding 
of character. 

During fair weather when the ship of 
state is sailing on an even keel, the " adult 
minors" are legally regarded as infants. 
As soon, however, as war-clouds gather and 
break upon the nation, these legal infants 

166 



RESPONSIBILITY 

are considered quite responsible enough to 
go to the front and risk their lives for their 
country. The records show that in our 
Civil War almost three-quarters of the 
combatants on both sides were under 
twenty-one years of age. This great and 
terrible war was fought and the nation 
saved largely by the boys of America. 
Neither were they confined to service in 
the ranks. Many of them became commis- 
sioned officers, some even rising to high 
rank. General Ripley, who was the first 
Union officer placed in command of Rich- 
mond after its capture, was barely twenty- 
three at the time. A Civil War captain said 
recently, "Mine was a regiment of young- 
sters out for a lark. Very few of us were of 
voting age/ 5 And of this "regiment of 
youngsters out for a lark" scarcely one 
half were left to tell the tale after a year of 
almost constant fighting. In fact, so uni- 
versally have boys of seventeen to twenty 
risen to the terrible emergencies of war just 
as well as men of thirty and thirty-five that 
their so doing is not a matter of remark. 
As soon as the war is over, however, the 
youths immediately revert to the legal 

167 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

status of infants* When great irrepressible 
issues must be decided by bullets they are 
welcomed into the terrible arbitrament, 
but when the ordinary issues of peace are 
to be settled by ballots they are excluded 
as too immature and irresponsible. 

Nothing is more common than to hear 
older people descant wisely to youths upon 
the part played by the early necessity for 
self-support and self-reliance in moulding 
the characters of our great self-made men, 
of whom Lincoln is of course the preemin- 
ent example. They are apparently content 
to point out these advantages without giv- 
ing the youths exhorted any opportun- 
ity to enjoy them. In fact, the faith which 
the ordinary adult appears to have in the 
efficacy of exhortation and moralizing is 
amazing when we consider its proved in- 
adequacy from time immemorial. Boys 
sometimes become so desperate, from be- 
ing preached at and treated as irresponsible 
beings, that they commit violent and even 
criminal acts to assert their self-respect. 
It may be an inverted and anti-social self- 
respect, but it is better than none and may 
be turned right side out. Deprived of all 

168 



RESPONSIBILITY 

opportunity for self-government or self- 
support, they are demonstrating in the 
only way which seems open to them that 
they are not infants, laws and customs to 
the contrary notwithstanding. In short, 
a large part of the trouble which society 
has with youth is caused by society treat- 
ing them as irresponsible beings. It is 
both humiliating and demoralizing for any 
class of persons to be looked upon as irre- 
sponsible. 

The youth of our country from sixteen to 
twenty-one, provided they are physically 
and mentally up to the standard of their 
age, are fit to assume the responsibilities of 
citizenship. They have an instinctive fel- 
low-feeling for every youth who falls into 
the toils of the adult-made law. The lad 
who does some dare-devil act against pro- 
perty, and even the man, has the open or 
secret admiration of practically all youth 
everywhere, and he knows it. Even good 
boys admire the youthful outlaw. Sociolo- 
gists discuss learnedly and at great length 
the causes of youthful depravity. They 
cite depraved home surroundings, evil en- 
vironments, bad heredity, physiological 

169 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

defects, and so on. At a National Confer- 
ence of Charities in New York City some 
years ago several so-called "criminal" 
boys in uniform were brought in as exhibits 
for the edification of the assembled workers 
for the dependent and delinquent. The 
lecturer pointed out their physiological de- 
fects, which indicated, he claimed, that 
they were hereditary and irreclaimable 
criminals. The boys understood all that he 
said. Were they morose or tearful at being 
thus publicly humiliated? Not a bit of it! 
They showed every indication of gratifica- 
tion. When they got out of the institution 
and back to their gangs, they undoubtedly 
recited this experience as a claim for special 
honors from the gang. And if they were 
successful in convincing the gang that they 
were not "kidding," they as certainly got 
the honors. 

Doubtless there is much that is true in 
the recondite conclusions of the criminolo- 
gists, but however that may be, one of the 
chief reasons why youths do acts of a crim- 
inal nature is this : Whenever they commit 
serious crimes that bring them into public 
notoriety, they know that they have the 

170 



RESPONSIBILITY 

admiration, albeit sometimes the secret 
admiration, of practically every youth in 
the land. For proof of this listen to the 
members of a street gang discussing the 
crime of some youth. Listen to the boys of 
any school discussing the same deed — 
provided they don't know you are listen- 
ing. Don't stop at the secular schools, but 
go to the Sunday schools and you will hear 
the same dare-devil act discussed with 
bated breath. And the hero of it all knows 
that he is in the limelight and glories in it. 
Eagerly he scans the headlines of the daily 
papers to see if the details of his crime are 
described with full and lurid picturesque- 
ness. 

A few years later we find the selfsame 
youths, who had lavished such admiration 
upon the dare-devil law-breaker, denounc- 
ing his acts and demanding his summary 
punishment as a criminal and a menace to 
society. Why this directly opposite point 
of view? Simply because they have come 
to the point where, instead of being irre- 
sponsible onlookers, they have the full 
powers of citizenship and the full responsi- 
bilities of self-support. Were the full re- 

171 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

sponsil^ilities of self-government and self- 
support, or something approximating to 
them, placed upon the physically and men- 
tally able youth some years earlier than at 
present, society would undoubtedly lose 
many enemies and gain many friends. 

Sir Baden-Powell's recognition of boys' 
capacity to rise to moral responsibility 
started the Boy Scout movement. At the 
siege of Mafeking, during the Boer War, 
every able-bodied man was pressed into the 
service to defend the city. At a critical 
point in the siege, messengers were needed. 
No men could be spared from the defenses. 
At length, Lord Cecil solved the problem 
by using the boys for the service. When 
General Baden-Powell learned how these 
boys had saved the situation, he asked 
himself why boys could not be so organ- 
ized as to be of service in time of peace. 
With this as a suggestion he gradually 
evolved the Boy Scout movement as it 
exists to-day. 

The Boy Scout movement represents a 
gathering together of most of the boys' 
organizations of the world. To the sum 
total of all the ideals underlying all these 

172 



RESPONSIBILITY 

organizations, Baden-Powell added the idea 
of giving daily service to the common good. 
Thus should service become not only a 
vague ideal, but a definite daily habit. 
Service as a life habit inculcated through 
daily practice is the dominant idea of the 
Boy Scout movement and the adhesive 
force which binds together all its compon- 
ent parts, Every representative Boy Scout 
feels a sense of responsibility for the wel- 
fare of his community. 

Some years ago in England, a troop of 
Boy Scouts who were camping near by 
were the first to arrive at the scene of a 
railroad wreck. They rescued people from 
the burning wreckage, gave them first-aid 
treatment and carried them on improvised 
stretchers to neighboring houses. The sur- 
geons later testified that the boys had done 
the work speedily and correctly and had 
probably saved many lives. An equal num- 
ber of boys, who were not trained, trusted, 
and imbued with a sense of civic responsi- 
bility, would have crowded around the 
scene of the disaster in awed silence until 
ordered out of the way by the men. It 
would never have occurred to them to help 

173 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

nor would it have occurred to the men to 
ask them. 

At a fire in Manila, Philippine Islands, 
two years ago, some Scout patrols arrived 
almost as soon as the fire engines and did 
wheel-horse work in helping people to 
safety, in maintaining fire lines, and pro- 
tecting property. When one realizes how 
very far from helpful boys usually are to 
the fire-fighters, this is an impressive ex- 
ample of the power of a changed point of 
view. 

In our own country, the Scouts of Moor- 
head, Minnesota, decided the conditions of 
the streets were not a credit to their town. 
It had become their town since they had 
become Boy Scouts. Instead of sending a 
letter of complaint to a newspaper, as some 
of their elders had done, they marched en 
masse to the central square, armed with 
burlap bags and sharp-pointed sticks, 
whence, on the blowing of a whistle, they 
scattered through every street of the town. 
Like avenging angels, they seized, bagged, 
and destroyed all pieces of loose paper and 
other offending articles throughout the 
length and breadth of Moorhead. Now, 

174 



RESPONSIBILITY 

had they scattered a like amount of refuse 
their act would have been attributed to 
boy nature, and that meaningless formula, 
"Boys will be boys," would have been 
quoted. Obviously it was just as much an 
expression of boy nature to clean up this 
town as it would have been to do the op- 
posite. If boy nature has usually displayed 
itself in a less fortunate manner, it must be 
attributed to other causes than its inherent 
qualities. Boys have a w T ay of living up or 
down to what is expected of them. Natur- 
ally this is distressing to those who expect 
nothing but evil from them. 

In a Junior Republic the point of view of 
a youth about lawlessness is changed as 
completely as it is on coming into the re- 
sponsibilities of manhood. When the dare- 
devil, lawless, or what some people call the 
criminal youth, is sent to a Junior Repub- 
lic instead of to a reformatory, he tries in 
the usual way to gain standing with the 
residents. He tells them what a desperate 
character he is. To his chagrin he finds 
this generally successful method a dismal 
failure. In the usual institution where 
benevolent despotism holds sw r ay and deals 

175 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

out by rote free food, shelter, and clothing 
to the inmates, the more desperate a char- 
acter the newcomer, the more welcome. 
How sweet is the sound of tales of violence 
to the monotony-drugged victims of a sys- 
tem! Then, since the inmates have no 
property, thieves have no terrors for them. 
In a Junior Republic, however, the new- 
comer finds himself a part of a little com- 
munity, the members of which work for 
their property and secure little or much 
according to their industry, and use the 
powers of citizenship to protect their pro- 
perty and persons against the lawless. It is 
a far cry from being an inmate to being a 
citizen. 

When the young "hoodlum" gets out of 
a Junior Republic jail, he determines to do 
right, not because he has been reformed, 
but because he wants to be popular with 
his fellows. He has found it politic to be 
honest. Truly, a rather low standard, but 
the only one he is capable of grasping at 
once. Then, through the various forces in 
operation about him, he advances to higher 
and higher ethical levels. Self-support is 
no small factor in this evolution, but greater 

176 




CULTIVATING NEW LAND 

















^nSSHm^ : 


- 'jp 8 ^ 









ON THE FARM 



RESPONSIBILITY 

than this is the exercise of the duties of 
citizenship. The formerly meaningless 
phrase, "We, the People/ 5 now includes 
him. He is a part of "the People." He 
hears a measure debated in town meeting 
and put to the vote of the citizens. Behold, 
he is a voter! The measure passes. Within 
an hour it is signed by the boy President 
and becomes a law. At once he realizes 
his individual power in the community. He 
sits on a jury when some boy is tried, as 
he was tried a few months before, and he 
feels his duty to act justly. He becomes an 
officer on the police force. It is his duty to 
see that the laws are enforced. This marks 
another stage in his development. All 
around him, wherever he turns, is moral 
and civic responsibility. During this plastic 
stage of development these same responsi- 
bilities are, without his being conscious of 
it, controlling his conduct and shaping his 
character. By these means he rises slowly 
but surely from the low standard of doing 
right for policy's sake to the point where 
he will do right for its own sake. 

This was exemplified in the case of a boy 
who was elected to the Presidency of the 

177 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

Freeville Republic by unanimous vote of 
his fellow citizens. The day after his in- 
auguration he came to Mr. George in evi- 
dent mental distress and said, " Daddy, 
some months ago, before anybody ever 
thought of my being good enough to be 
President, I stole something right here in 
the Republic. I 've come to tell you about 
it and ask you what you think I ought to 
do." 

Instead of advising him, Mr. George 
asked him what he was going to do. A de- 
termined look came into the boy's face as 
he replied, "Daddy, I'm going to call the 
citizens together, tell them what I ' ve done, 
resign my position, surrender myself to the 
police, and go to jail." Unflinchingly he 
faced this ordeal and went to jail. His 
crime could never have been found out. 
From the point of view of expediency there 
was no reason for his doing as he did. 

The delegates to the National Conference 
of Charities held in the city of Boston last 
year were given a steamboat excursion 
about Boston Harbor. Two bright-looking 
lads were selling copies of "The Survey" 
to the delegates. As one of these boys passed 

178 



RESPONSIBILITY 

near where Mr. George was standing, a 
delegate turned to his companion and 
said, — 

"That is one of the judges we saw sitting 
at the Newsboys 5 Court last night dealing 
out fines and warnings to the young offend- 
ers who had violated their licenses/ 5 

One of the party thereupon explained 
that the newsboys of Boston of school age 
were licensed by the School Committee to 
sell newspapers* There were regulations 
and obligations, some of which were cov- 
ered by city ordinances. Some people in- 
terested in self-government had secured 
the adoption of measures creating a judi- 
cial body of five, three of whom were 
newsboys elected by their fellows, and two, 
adults, to try the cases of violation of rules. 
The Court was established. 

Another delegate then said, "I went ex- 
pecting to be amused, but instead of that, 
I never felt more awe or reverence in the 
United States Supreme Court than I felt 
in the presence of those boy judges, and 
evidently everyone else in the room, 
whether boy or man, had the same feeling. 
I don't know when they closed Court last 

179 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

night. They tried the little chaps first 
and sent them home, and they were try- 
ing some of the older lads, and still had 
quite a bunch of them on hand when we 
left." 

Mr. George listened to these comments 
in silence, but with a glad heart. Some 
months before he had seized the oppor- 
tunity to fan the flame which resulted in 
this Court when it had been discussed by 
a group of enthusiasts who were dining 
together in the City Club of Boston. 
He rushed over to the lad whose recogni- 
tion had started the discussion and said, 
"You're one of the judges of the news- 
boys' court, I understand." 

"Yes," replied the boy with an earnest, 
straightforward look. 

"How do you like your job?" 

A serious expression came into his face 
as he replied, "In a way I like it, but a 
feller has got to keep his eye peeled on him- 
self, and his 'think-tank' pretty clear." 

"I hear your court sat very late last 
night." 

"Yes," he said, "we had a good many 
cases last night." 

180 



RESPONSIBILITY 

"How many sessions do you hold a 
week?" 

"One usually, and sometimes two." 

"How much are you paid for service on 
the bench?" 

"Fifty cents from the city each night we 
serve." 

"Who decides the number of nights you 
shall sit?" 

"We do — the judges." 

"If you wanted to, could you hold a ses- 
sion every evening?" 

"I think prob'ly we could," he answered. 

"Then why don't you hold more sessions 
instead of continuing them so late?" asked 
Mr. George, 

"Because," he said, "we don't want to 
have it look as if we was graftin' off the 
city. We are there to do service to the city 
and to the newsboys." 

Fortunately the ideas, of which the 
Junior Republics are the fullest expression, 
are already widespread. The complete ex- 
pression — a real government of the youth, 
by the youth, and for the youth — has now 
been for seventeen years not a theory but an 
accomplished fact. During those years eight 

181 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

other communities with such a government 
have come into being. In these communities 
youths learn to govern themselves by gov- 
erning themselves, learn to support them- 
selves by supporting themselves. In short, 
they learn to live by living. How often 
have we all heard people say that if they 
could live their lives over again, they would 
do this thing and would not do the other 
thing? 

An ex-citizen of a Republic once said, 
"A fellow who has been through a Junior 
Republic has a kind of chance to live his 
life over again. He knows what he can do 
because he did it on a small scale in the 
Republic. Also he knows what he can't do, 
because he tried that, too, in the Republic, 
and 'got it in the neck. 5 " Yes, the boy and 
girl citizens of these communities do in a 
very real sense have an opportunity to live 
their lives over again. 

While it will never be possible for all 
boys and all girls to become citizens of 
Junior Republics, it could and it should be 
possible for all boys and all girls to have a 
real share in the management of their own 
affairs in their schools, or their clubs, or 

182 



RESPONSIBILITY 

wherever they may be gathered together 
for whatever purpose. They could and 
they should be apprentice citizens of their 
various small groups and communities be- 
fore they become actual citizens of the 
great community. 



CHAPTER IX 



SELF-GOVERNMENT IN SCHOOLS AND 
INSTITUTIONS 1 



A New York City Alderman was seated in 
his office when a card was handed him 
which aroused his curiosity. It bore this 
inscription written in a sprawling childish 
hand on a piece of pasteboard : — 

Joseph Marks, 

Lieutenant-Governor, McCabe School State, 
P. S. 109, 

Brooklyn, New York. 

The Alderman read it and laughingly asked 
the attendant to show the " Lieutenant- 
Governor " in. Presently that dignitary 
appeared — fifteen years old, but small for 
his age. He replied courteously but gravely 
to the laughing salutations of the Alder- 

1 Prior to two years ago Mr. George would not have indorsed 
this chapter because, as previously explained, up to that time he 
believed that self-government could not be effective without a 
property basis. 

184 



SELF-GOVERNMENT IN SCHOOLS 

man. Seeing by his caller's manner that 
levity was not in order, the Alderman with 
difficulty composed his features and asked 
with mock gravity, "What can I do for the 
Honorable Joseph Marks?" 

"I have it all written out in a petition 
from me and my fellow citizens/' replied 
the boy as he handed him a formidable- 
looking document carefully tied with a 
soiled pink ribbon. 

The Alderman undid the ribbon and 
read the petition which ran thus : « — 

"In the name of the children of New 
Lots and Powell Streets, South of Public 
School 109, Brooklyn, I request a simple 
favor of you, which my friends have done 
previously, but have not succeeded in hav- 
ing their favor fulfilled. I (Joseph Marks), 
Lieutenant-Governor of the McCabe 
School State of Public School 109, Brook- 
lyn, have been asked by my fellow citizens, 
living in the above-mentioned neighbor- 
hood, to request a simple favor of you to 
have the gutters paved in that section. 

"Public School 109 consists of three de- 
partments, of which the legislative depart- 
ment is the most important. I, as chair- 

185 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

man of this department, am supposed to 
execute the laws, as my duty requires; but 
it is very hard for my friends and me to ex- 
ecute our own laws, for the simple reason 
that we are compelled to travel over very 
filthy roads in order to reach school. 

"Many a time and, in fact, at all times, 
the Representatives (or lawmakers) and I, 
instead of executing our own laws, must 
violate them. It is a great disgrace both to 
the school and me, that I should violate the 
laws of my own organization. Among them 
is a law stating that all citizens should 
come to school with polished shoes. It is 
impossible, as I have said, to obey that 
certain law; for 

"1. If the day is clear, people passing by 
cannot help 'painting their shoes with 
dust/ 

"2. If the day is rainy, passers-by 
'paint their shoes with mud.' Although we 
use rubbers, we lose them in the mud; 
therefore, we catch cold because our feet 
become wet, and we cannot attend school. 

"3. If the day is foggy, we often step 
into deep mud, and through hard work, 
barely reach school in time, looking more 

186 



SELF-GOVERNMENT IN SCHOOLS 

like pigs than citizens of the McCabe 
School State. 5 ' 

Laying down the paper and turning to 
his expectant young caller, the Alderman 
said, this time with genuine gravity, "I 
consider this complaint most serious and 
shall take it up at once with the proper 
authorities and will let you know what can 
be done." 

As a result these streets were paved just 
as speedily as the materials could be as- 
sembled. 

Not long after the Junior Republic at 
Freeville had emerged from a picturesque 
theory into an accomplished fact, a few 
far-sighted educational leaders began to 
realize that the principles there successfully 
applied could and should be used in the 
schools. Soon they began to experiment, 
and these early experiments mark the be- 
ginning of self-government for youth as a 
movement. 

Six years ago the great public school, 
which the young Lieutenant-Governor 
represented (P. S. 109, Brooklyn), was 
organized on a self-government basis. Al- 
though this by no means marked the 

187 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

beginning of school self-government in this 
country, it may be said to mark a revival of 
interest in the idea — a revival which has 
not only continued but steadily increased 
up to the present writing. 

This school is divided into a boys' and 
girls' department with about two thousand 
pupils in each. The boys' department was 
first organized as a School State. The boys 
of the three highest grades were gathered 
together in the assembly hall to the num- 
ber of six or seven hundred. It was ex- 
plained to this motley group of youngsters, 
many of them recent arrivals from some 
of the most tyranny-ridden countries of 
Europe, and ninety per cent of them either 
immigrants or the sons of immigrants, that 
if they desired it they were to be given op- 
portunity to regulate their own affairs un- 
der the guidance and supervision of their 
teachers. They desired it with a vengeance, 
and an election of officers was held on the 
spot. They elected a Governor, a Lieu- 
tenant-Governor, a Secretary of State, a 
State Treasurer, an Attorney-General, and 
a Chief Justice. It was said at that time 
that there was a number of children in the 

188 



SELF-GOVERNMENT IN SCHOOLS 

school who thought we had no government 
in this country. Government in their minds 
was synonymous with tyranny and this 
was a land of liberty. Naturally these 
young officers had not the faintest idea 
what they were expected to do until they 
had been instructed in their duties by their 
teachers. They felt, however, that they 
wanted to do something at once. There- 
fore, after school they stayed and reduced 
the school basement, yard, and even the 
surrounding sidewalks to a state of immacu^ 
late cleanliness such as they never before 
had known. The janitor surveyed their un- 
usual activities with mingled suspicion and 
approbation — the startled functionary did 
not know that he was witnessing the out- 
ward manifestation of an inward change. 
Before this the school premises had been to 
these boys merely the property of the city, 
for which they felt no personal responsi- 
bility; but now they had become the terri- 
tory of their School State for which they 
felt directly responsible. Unconsciously 
they had hit upon the property basis of 
their government — a non-individualistic, 
socialized property basis. 

189 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

For the legislative branch of their gov- 
ernment the boys elected an Assembly in 
which sat two representatives from each 
class or "City." Each class or city elected 
a mayor for a term of one month. Each 
row of seats formed a ward and elected an 
alderman to a city council, which con- 
cerned itself with the local affairs of the 
class, such as the arrangement of pictures 
and decorations, the distribution of ma- 
terials, etc. The class teacher retained a 
veto over the rules of the council. 

Some months after the launching of this 
School State, one of the boy legislators in- 
troduced in the Assembly a resolution that 
the girls be admitted to the suffrage, that 
they be organized in a manner similar to 
the boys, that all resolutions before be- 
coming laws be required to pass both the 
Boys' Assembly and the Girls' Senate, and 
be signed both by the boy Governor and 
the girl Governor. In accordance with in- 
variable custom a veto power was to vest 
in the Principal — in this case both the 
Principals. There followed a lively debate 
in which some of the more potent argu- 
ments ran thus : " Now, I think this is a bad 

190 



SELF-GOVERNMENT IN SCHOOLS 

resolution, Mr. Speaker. I don't think we 
ought to leave our girls vote because they 
was n't meant to. Now, they don't let our 
mothers vote an' I don't know why they 
don't, but they must have some good rea- 
son for not leaving 'em." 

The next little representative recognized 
by the Chair said, "I don't agree with the 
previous speaker about women voting, be- 
cause I think that out West somewheres 
they do let ladies vote, and they do it very 
nice, an' I think we can't tell what 's going 
to happen in ten or twelve years. Perhaps 
by then ladies will be let to vote here, so I 
think we ought to leave our girls vote, so 
that if they are let to, when they grow up 
they'll know how to do it good." 

The last speaker was a calm youngster 
whose manner suggested judicial poise. 
He said, "Mr. Speaker, we haven't any- 
thing to do about whether women vote or 
whether they can't — that's none of our 
business, so it's no sense to talk about it. 
But it is our business to make our School 
State the best School State as we can make 
it. Now, I've noticed that the girls don't 
obey our laws very good, an' I don't be- 

191 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

lieve we can ever make 'em obey them 
good until we give 'em something to say 
about makin' 'em. Therefore, I think we 
ought to leave 'em vote so as to make our 
School State as good as we can make it." 

This argument apparently carried con- 
viction to the doubters. The measure was 
put to vote and passed almost unanimously. 
The girls' department was immediately or- 
ganized as the boys' had been. 

In the schools where there is no sex sepa- 
ration, the question of admitting the girls 
to the suffrage does not even come up for 
discussion. Except where the sexes are 
separated, that the girls are just as much 
citizens as the boys is apparently taken for 
granted. All attempts to show the superi- 
ority of boys over girls, or vice versa, in self- 
governing ability have proved futile. No 
sooner have conclusions been drawn on the 
one side or the other than they have been 
overset by later evidence. As the matter 
stands to-day one can by a judicious selec- 
tion of evidence apparently prove the case 
either way. 

When a bill is vetoed by either the boy 
or the girl Governor, it goes before the vot- 

192 




AT WORK IN THE CARPENTER'S SHOP 




MODERN PRESS FOR PRINTING MAGAZINE AND 
OTHER WORK 



SELF-GOVERNMENT IN SCHOOLS 

ers for approval or disapproval. In short, 
the referendum is used. When it is vetoed 
by a Principal, which almost never hap- 
pens, that of course ends the matter. 

All offenses committed outside the class- 
room are tried in the citizens' own Court. 
In the class, the teacher is in absolute 
charge unless she cares to avail herself of 
the Court, in which case the Attorney- 
General conducts the prosecution and re- 
presents the teacher or the Principal. The 
penalties inflicted are: (a), Reparation 
where possible; (6), apology; (c), reprimand 
in Court; (d), reprimand in class; (e), de- 
tention after school; (/), imposition of 
demerit marks; (g), deprivation of the 
rights of citizenship for a stated period, 
which involves the forfeiture of civic rights 
in halls, playgrounds, and on the street. 
All penalties must be approved by the 
teacher in charge. This veto power is very 
rarely exercised, but when it is, it is prac- 
tically always ujsed to modify the severity 
of the penalty. That is, the teacher some- 
times intercedes with the Court on behalf 
of the offender. 

Here in this School State, just as at the 
193 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

Junior Republic, the citizens came finally 
to feel the need of a Court to which ap- 
peal could be made in case of miscarriage 
of justice or discontent with decisions, and 
to which could be referred in the first in- 
stance difficulties between pupils and teach- 
ers. Accordingly the Principal established 
a Supreme Court which sits whenever 
there are cases to come before it. The 
judges are three teachers appointed by 
the Principal each time the Court meets. 
In order to insure fair and impartial deci- 
sions, he appoints teachers who know no- 
thing of the cases to come before the 
Court. The Principal has said that this 
Court has proved of great educational 
value to the teachers, just as has their own 
Court to the children. 

In another large public school in New 
York City (P. S. 110, Manhattan), organ- 
ized in a similar manner, the boy Governor 
was apparently successfully reelected. He 
received the congratulations of his fellows 
and his teachers, was inaugurated, and 
started on his second term as chief execu- 
tive. After some weeks in office, he dis- 
covered that in counting the votes a certain 

194 



SELF-GOVERNMENT IN SCHOOLS 

room of younger children, only recently 
admitted to the suffrage, had been accident- 
ally omitted. He at once appealed to the 
Principal for a recount. The Principal de- 
murred. He knew the young Governor's 
value as a helper, the school had settled 
down contentedly under his leadership, so 
why not let sleeping dogs lie? The boy 
finally insisted that he would have to resign 
unless the votes were recounted. Accord- 
ingly a recount was taken in which the 
young Governor was counted out of office 
and his chief rival installed in his place. 
The new boy Governor then appointed his 
defeated rival Commissioner of Health, one 
of the most important offices in his gift. 

Another one of the self-governing schools 
in New York (P. S. 114, Manhattan) is 
known as the "Melting-Pot." In it are 
seventeen different nationalities. The Ital- 
ian and Jewish elements are dominant 
and numerically about equal. An Italian 
and a Hebrew boy were rival candidates 
for the office of District Attorney. The 
Italians were backing their candidate, and 
the Hebrews theirs, until one of the leading 
Jewish boys at a midday rally made this 

195 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

appeal: "I want to tell you Jewish citizens 
that if you vote for Harry Cohen you will 
make a big mistake. What do we want? 
We want a District Attorney — a strong 
District Attorney what's got the nerve to 
do his duty, and not a Jewish District At- 
torney ! We want the best feller we can get 
and you know, same as I know, that feller 
is Joseph Tooregrossa." Joseph got the 
bulk of the Jewish vote and was elected. 

To reach this school the Jewish boys 
have to come through an Italian district 
which immediately surrounds the school. 
It had been a tradition of the school for the 
boys of all nationalities to join forces with 
the Italian boys at more or less regular in- 
tervals for the purpose of "beating-up the 
Jews/ 5 The " beater s-up" would lie in am- 
bush for the Hebrew lads as they passed 
through the Italian district. Each time, 
as a result of these beatings, a number of 
the Jewish boys were unable to attend 
school for several days, and some few had 
to go to hospitals. A newly elected Gover- 
nor of this School State called his advisers 
together and said, "Now, fellers, in the 
administration what 9 s just closed, the big 

196 



SELF-GOVERNMENT IN SCHOOLS 

thing they did for the school was to cut out 
truancy. Now, it's up to us to do some big 
thing like that in our administration. Now, 
I think the biggest thing what we could do 
would be to cut out this beating-up of the 
Jews. And it's a good thing for us to do it 
because so few of us is Jews that people 
could n't say we done it because we was 
Jews." 

The Governor's advice was followed. 
Just before the next attack on the Jews the 
would-be beaters-up were arrested by their 
fellows on the police force and, we dare say, 
those few who were foolish enough to resist 
arrest were "beaten-up" as soundly as 
they had planned to "beat-up" the Jews. 

The stopping of truancy referred to by 
the young Governor as the star achievement 
of his predecessor's administration hap- 
pened in this way: The truant officer had 
gone to the hospital seriously ill. Evi- 
dently he could not return to his duties 
for many weeks. The Principal called the 
Governor, the Attorney-General, and the 
Chief of Police to his office and said, "As 
you know, Mr. has gone to the hos- 
pital and can't be back for many weeks. 

197 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

The city is short of truant officers and I 
don't want to call for one if I can avoid it. 
It occurred to me that possibly you officers 
could handle the situation and would be 
willing to try it." 

The boy officers agreed to try it, and the 
Governor directed the Chief of Police to 
take charge of the campaign. A few morn- 
ings later the Chief of Police asked to be 
allowed to make a statement to the citizens 
in the assembly room. Here he told them 
that their Principal had put the matter of 
truancy into their hands, and that he, as 
the officer in charge, wanted to call upon 
every citizen to help him make a record for 
their School State. Incidentally he ex- 
plained that he had charted the district, 
knew exactly where every truant's "hang- 
out" was, and just how long it would take 
his force to search every "joint" in the 
neighborhood. The citizens applauded and 
agreed to help. 

To make a long story short, the Principal 
of the school testified that truancy began 
to diminish almost at once and steadily de- 
creased until in the last week or two before 
the return of the adult officer it had ceased 

198 



SELF-GOVERNMENT IN SCHOOLS 

altogether. When the adult officer returned, 
the boy officers were relieved of all respon- 
sibility in the matter. Almost at once tru- 
ancy started up again and gradually in- 
creased until it had resumed its normal 
proportions. The adult officer was not in- 
efficient. On the contrary, he was a par- 
ticularly good officer, but he could not know 
the neighborhood as minutely as did the 
boys, he did not understand boy psychology 
as did the boy officers, and the pupils gener- 
ally could not reasonably be expected to 
cooperate with him to any such extent as 
with their own officers elected by them- 
selves. 

In public school No. 20, on the East Side, 
this case came up in the Court — their own 
Court. The prisoner at the bar was charged 
with having jumped upon the rear platform 
of a car that was passing the school and 
rung up some fares. When the young Dis- 
trict Attorney came to sum up to the 
Judge, he said, in conclusion, "Just a word 
more, your Honor (His honor was fourteen 
years old), before I sit down. Everybody 
who knows anything about our school 
knows we have self-government here. 

199 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

Now, supposing the President of this car 
company should write to our Principal a 
letter that his cars was troubled by boys 
doing things to them more goin' past our 
school than any other place. Would n't 
that be a disgrace to our school and to all 
our officers an' to every citizen? And what 
would people say about our self-govern- 
ment? Would n't they say as how if that 
was the way we acted when we had self- 
government, why, then we was n't fit to 
have it? Now, your Honor, I think you 
ought to think about this before you give 
your sentence in this prisoner's case." 

His Honor evidently did "think about 
this." He pronounced the prisoner guilty, 
and penalized him by prohibiting him not 
only from taking part in the athletic games, 
for which he had been in training for some 
weeks, but even from attending them. 

An advocate of self-government was 
urging the principal of a school in the sub- 
urbs of New York to put his school on a 
self-governing basis, when the Principal 
replied, "I thoroughly believe in the idea, 
but it could not be done in my school at 
present because unfortunately the worst- 

200 



SELF-GOVERNMENT IN SCHOOLS 

behaved boy in the school is the most popu- 
lar. He would be sure to be elected to the 
chief office, and that would make the whole 
thing a farce." 

After a time the self-government advocate 
persuaded the Principal to start an experi- 
mental organization and to hold a tenta- 
tive election of officers, it being understood 
that if the objectionable boy was elected to 
an important post the whole matter would 
be given up at least for the time being. The 
election was accordingly held. Not only 
was the popular bad boy not elected to 
the chief office, but he was not elected to 
any office whatever. Which goes to show 
that the majority can be depended upon, 
whether of men or boys. Naturally he re- 
sented being left out in the new order of 
events, and began to make things unpleas- 
antly lively for some of the boy officials 
just as he had previously for his teachers. 
Finally a committee of the office-holders 
waited upon the Principal and made the 
apparently astonishing suggestion that this 
very boy be appointed Chief of Police. They 
argued that he was not really bad, but 
merely full of animal spirits, that he had a 

201 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

great deal of ability, was a natural leader, 
and knew the conditions better than any 
one else. And they concluded with the 
argument that it might straighten him out 
himself. The Principal was doubtful, but 
told them to do as they thought best. The 
boy was accordingly appointed Chief of 
Police. Within a month order was com- 
pletely restored in the school, and this boy, 
who had been on the verge of dismissal for 
incorrigible conduct, had become a well- 
nigh indispensable aid to the Principal and 
teachers. 

In a recent speaking tour across the con- 
tinent Mr. George spoke in the High School 
at Oakland, California. On reaching the 
school, instead of being greeted as usual by 
the Principal, he was met by one of the 
boys, who welcomed him and handed him 
a note from the Principal. In this note the 
Principal explained that on that particular 
day each month he and the teachers left the 
school entirely in the hands of the students, 
while they visited other schools. There was 
not a teacher in the building save a few who 
were merely visitors. The exercises and 
classes were going on as usual, and Mr. 

202 



SELF-GOVERNMENT IN SCHOOLS 

George says that not in his whole tour did 
he find a school conducted in a better or a 
more orderly manner. 

There is a School Republic in the Hebrew 
Sheltering Guardian Society in New York, 
which differs from those described, in that 
the children are under its direct influence 
all day long, instead of from nine to three 
only. The upwards of one thousand chil- 
dren in this institution are organized into 
two School cities, one of girls, the other of 
boys. Each is subdivided into wards with 
twenty-five citizens each. Each city has a 
city council, and each ward a local council. 
Two representatives from each ward com- 
pose the city council. 

One of the gala days here is Visitors' 
Day. On this day, which comes once every 
two months, friends and relatives come in 
great numbers. There is much hugging 
and kissing and giving of presents, and the 
children are left with from ten to fifty cents 
apiece to spend as they please. On these 
days of rejoicing there was always a de- 
jected little company of youngsters who 
were perforce merely spectators. They had 
no relatives or friends, and got no presents 

203 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

or spending-money. Some months after 
the organizing of the councils, a boy intro- 
duced into the boys' council "A Bill for the 
establishment of a Penniless Fund/ 5 It 
had already been passed by the girls' coun- 
cil. The bill stipulated that every citizen 
who was neglected on Visitors' Day should 
receive a ten-cent credit at the citizens' 
bank; that such credits should be paid from 
the funds of the Republic treasury, but 
should be registered as coming from a 
friend. None of the prospective beneficia- 
ries happened to be in the council. The 
councilman who introduced the measure 
said in its defence, "It is n't right that on 
Visitors' Day, when most of the citizens 
are having fun with their friends and rela- 
tives, that there should be a few citizens 
who are made to feel worse on that day 
than any other because they have n't any 
friends or relatives and don't get any pres- 
ents or any spending-money. Now, we 
can't make them have friends and relatives 
to come and see them an' give them 
things, but we can give them a ten-cent 
credit on our treasury, an' we can call it 
that it's from a friend, so that they will 

204 



SELF-GOVERNMENT IN SCHOOLS 

feel they've got a friend after all, an' so 
that they won't think they are getting 
charity/' The measure was passed un- 
animously. 

Had the self-government made these 
children kind-hearted? Nothing of the 
sort! It had simply provided a channel 
for the application of a generous impulse. 
Some boy or girl among them would have 
had the generous impulse in any case, but 
without some such channel of expression 
it could not have been translated into 
action. 

Let us now turn to an institution as far 
removed from an asylum for homeless 
children as the Lawrenceville School. Only 
a few months after self-government had 
been introduced into one of the Lawrence- 
ville dormitories, both the masters in 
charge were by accident absent on a cer- 
tain night. Automatically the elective 
Student Council took charge, suppressed a 
budding "rough house," and maintained 
order somewhat more strictly than usual. 
Any one who has read Owen Johnson's 
Lawrenceville stories knows how contrary 
this conduct was to the traditions of the 

205 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

place, and any one who knows anything 
of boys knows how powerfully they are in- 
fluenced by traditions. 

At Harvard not long ago the Student 
Council recommended that the hour exam- 
inations (informal tests) be held at more 
frequent intervals and count more heavily 
in determining a student's grade, so as to 
reduce the evils of " cramming" just be- 
fore the mid-year and final examinations. 
Just imagine college students without or- 
ganization or responsibility proposing any 
such change ! The only fellows who would 
desire such a reform under autocratic man- 
agement would be insufferable prigs whose 
influence with their fellows would be less 
than none. 

By a canvass of two hundred schools the 
School Citizens' Committee (the voluntary 
organization devoted to the supervision 
and extension of pupil self-government) 
has gathered together these standard ob- 
jections to pupil self-government and the 
answers to them as given by a New York 
City Principal who has conducted his 
school on the plan for six years: — 



206 



SELF-GOVERNMENT IN SCHOOLS 



(1) Pupil self-government 
calls for a mental development 
that children do not possess. 
Neither is it desirable that 
children should become "Leg- 
islative, Judicial, and Execu- 
tive. " We want to keep them 
young as long as we can. 



(2) It takes up too much 
time. 



(3) Children, when vested 
with power, become arrogant. 



(4) If men cannot success- 
fully govern themselves, how 
can children? 



(1A) We have found the 
pupils of the sixth, seventh, 
and eighth grades adequately 
and normally developed, able 
to conduct their own affairs — 
under discreet supervision. As 
for the contention that self- 
government induces precocity, 
it is unfounded. The children, 
both officers and citizens, are 
thoroughly normal, healthy 
and sport-loving young Amer- 
icans. 

(2A) The actual time con- 
sumed by the formal side of the 
School Republic is ten minutes 
for the election at the begin- 
ning of the school term and the 
time of three teachers per week 
for an hour after school; the 
latter a voluntary work of the 
teachers. 

(3A) Six years of pupil self- 
government have failed to 
bring forth a domineering 
state official. 

(4A) No amount of a priori 
reasoning can argue away the 
fact that children do gov- 
ern themselves relatively well. 
May it not be one of the con- 
tributory causes of the short- 
comings of our democracy that 
as children our people were not 
effectively trained for partici- 
pation in civic life? Are we not 
now paying the price of the 
despotic schoolmaster rule of 
the old days? What prepara- 
tion for living in a democracy 
was so ill-designed as the none 



207 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 



(5) In the last analysis the 
supervision necessary makes 
mere puppets of the children. 



(6) The machinery is so 
elaborate that the purpose is 
destroyed. 



(7) The energy expended is 
not worth while. 



(8) Pupil self-government 



too benevolent despotism of 
the birch-rod master? And 
even under the present system 
of text-book civics, what actual 
preparation is there for life as 
a citizen? The science of num- 
ber is taught by the use of num- 
bers; physical training is car- 
ried out by a scientifically 
developed course of physical 
exercises; drawing is drawing, 
and nature study is pursued 
largely by a first-hand study 
of objects, but civics takes its 
place with astronomy in that 
it deals with things remote. 
The vitalization of civics calls 
for some mode of pupil self- 
government. 

(5A) Not a fact. Judicious 
supervision exercised along the 
lines of friendly control with- 
out dictation serves the two- 
fold purpose of fostering initia- 
tive and preventing the chil- 
dren from attempting too 
much. 

(6A) Yes, if the machinery 
is so elaborate, but it need not 
be, and it is not. Elaborate 
systems fall to the ground of 
their own weight. The best re- 
sults are obtained along the 
simplest lines. 

(7 A) If a wealth of school 
spirit and a splendid cooper- 
ative attitude on the part of 
teachers and pupils is not 
worth while, is anything in this 
world worth while? 

(8A) The objection sup- 



SELF-GOVERNMENT IN SCHOOLS 



is simply for show; it cannot 
take care of those serious 
cases, e.g., thievery, etc., 
which come up in every school. 



(9) The children of our day 
are more in need of respect for 
authority than the exercise of 
it. 



(10) In the economic condi- 
tions under which we live our 
children need all the knowl- 
edge that they can get to pre- 
pare for the struggle for exist- 
ence. 



(11) Pupil self-government 
destroys one of the greatest 
influences of the school, i.e., 
the principal's and teachers' 
personal influence. 

(12) The activities of pupil 
self-government are mere play 
and are recognized as such by 
the pupils. 



poses that the entire govern- 
ment of the school is in the 
hands of the pupils. Rather is 
pupil government an auxiliary 
of the regularly constituted 
school regime and makes the 
handling of untoward events 
a simpler procedure than 
usual. 

(9A) Why? The children of 
our day have been quickened 
by the inquiring spirit of our 
times and are quick to detect 
the shallowness of the auto- 
cratic system. But where they 
are trained to a rational respect 
for authority through a realiza- 
tion of the necessity and the 
participation in the exercise of 
it, their respect and loyalty 
becomes unshakable. 

(10A) The economic con- 
ditions under which we live are 
extremely trying, because we 
have let slip from our grasp 
the power that rightfully be- 
longs to us. The fundamental 
remedy is to teach our children 
the value of working together, 
reclaiming that power and re- 
establishing the conditions of 
true democracy. 

(11 A) Through six years 
the principal and teachers and 
pupils have been brought con- 
stantly into closer and more 
efficient cooperation. 

(12A) Even if it is pleasur- 
able it is real play. The pupils 
consciously imitate the pro- 
cedure of enlightened citizens. 



209 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

but find great enjoyment in 
it. Therein is its great value. 
They play, they learn, they 
develop, they prepare. What 
more can one ask of an edu- 
cational device than that it 
mould character effectively 
and joyfully? 

These and like objections we have found 
to be based in the main upon what we be- 
lieve to be, first, a misconception of the 
purpose and significance of student self- 
government, and, second, a widely held 
fallacy regarding education itself. The 
misconception lies in regarding self-govern- 
ment for youth as a means of practical 
training in civics. It is rather a means for 
the development of the individual charac- 
ter of each and the social consciousness of 
all. As an incident of such character devel- 
opment, it does afford the best possible op- 
portunity for practical training in civics, 
but that is merely one of its by-products. 
While it provides definite channels for the 
immediate translation of right desires into 
right acts, the inspiration which arouses 
the right desires must come, under self- 
government, as under any other method, 
chiefly from the adults in charge. Even 

210 



SELF-GOVERNMENT IN SCHOOLS 

some persons of large intelligence point to 
the fact that wrong desires result in wrong 
acts under self-government, as a danger 
and a weakness. They say, and say truly, 
that self-government among youth is sub- 
ject to the same evils as self-government 
among grown persons . This criticism 
seems to us to be based upon what we will 
call the Utopian fallacy regarding educa- 
tion. The Utopian fallacy holds that youth 
should be surrounded by conditions as 
nearly Utopian as possible during the 
period of formal education. Were this 
world a Utopia, this contention would be 
sound. Until this world becomes a Utopia, 
it is fundamentally unsound. The moral, 
like the physical, muscles can only become 
strong through exercise. Utopian condi- 
tions provide no opportunity for their 
exercise. 

The underlying principles of Junior Re- 
publics and School Republics are the same. 
The development of character through 
responsibility is the primal aim of each. 
The upbuilding of the social consciousness, 
the each-for-all sense, without which no 
free community can ever prosper or long 

211 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

endure, is the supplementary aim of each. 
In Junior Republics these purposes are 
achieved by means of, first, self-support; 
second, self-government. In the ordinary 
school there is no self-support and hence 
all rests upon self-government. Where there 
is self-support there is property. Those 
who have property naturally want laws to 
protect it. Here is a good old dollars-and- 
cents, self-interest foundation — a firm 
and good foundation upon which to build a 
superstructure of unselfish social coopera- 
tion. In the schools this foundation is lack- 
ing. All depends upon the each-for-all 
sense enforced by that mighty weapon — 
Public Opinion. 

One of the pioneers in self-government as 
a movement was Wilson L. Gill, of Phila- 
delphia, who originated the School City. 
The School City is a device for the applica- 
tion of the principles of self-government to 
the ordinary school or institution. As its 
name implies, it consists in organizing the 
school as a miniature city or state in which 
the children are the citizens and elect from 
among themselves their own officers — 
legislative, executive, and judicial — and 

212 



SELF-GOVERNMENT IN SCHOOLS 

manage their own affairs under the inspira- 
tion and supervision of their teachers. 

John Ray, of Chicago, another pioneer, 
devised the Ray System, which in principle 
differs scarcely at all from the School City, 
but which in form emulates the democracy 
of the Roman Republic. Each class elects 
a tribune who acts as the leader and repre- 
sentative. As leader, the tribune adjusts 
minor differences between pupils, and an- 
swers questions about details that ordin- 
arily would be put to the teacher. As repre- 
sentative, the tribune acts for the class 
when called upon to do so by the teacher or 
the principal. There is a school council, 
made up of the tribunes of the several 
classes, which acts in a legislative capacity 
in conjunction with the principal. The em- 
phasis is laid upon the privilege of citizen- 
ship. The badge or pin of the citizen can 
be won, "only by good conduct and correct 
moral principles." 

There is also the Brownlee method, orig- 
inated by Miss Jane Brownlee, of Toledo, 
Ohio. Miss Brownlee's starting-point in 
self-government is with the spiritual side 
of the child's nature. Her basic idea is that 

213 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

"thoughts are things." Consequently, if 
the habit of thinking righteous thoughts is 
cultivated in the child, righteous action will 
follow as surely as the night the day. Miss 
Brownlee says, "Only half is done when 
children are made conscious of this won- 
derful thought power: they must be given 
a channel through which to direct and use 
it." This "channel" is then provided by 
organizing the school as a School City. 

Besides these labeled methods there are 
modifications and combinations of each 
and all so various as to defy definition or 
classification. In fact, there are almost as 
many methods as there are teachers apply- 
ing any method. No teacher, in short, who 
has not enough individuality to individual- 
ize his or her method has enough character 
to succeed with any method. This diversity 
is quite in accord with the wishes of the 
leaders, who never intended to offer cut- 
and-dried devices which would fit any and 
every school, but merely to present work- 
ing models to be moulded and fitted to 
local needs and individual tastes. There 
are now to be found schools organized after 
the manner of almost every known govern- 

214 



SELF-GOVERNMENT IN SCHOOLS 

ment, including government by commis- 
sion, and some quite as effective modeled 
after no form of government that ever ex- 
isted or ever will. There are, in fact, some 
schools where the self-expression of the 
pupils is only incidentally through govern- 
mental channels. In such schools Jeffer- 
son's ideal of a minimum of government 
is the standard, but they are none the less 
miniature democracies, and are entirely in 
conformity with the fundamental princi- 
ples of self-government which are the only 
principles which may properly be insisted 
upon by its advocates. Wherever the 
pupils are given a share in the active man- 
agement of their own affairs in some con- 
scious and tangible manner, there are the 
principles of self-government being applied, 
whatever the outward form. This defini- 
tion, broad as it is, is not broad enough to 
include monitorial systems as generally 
understood. The delegation of authority 
by the autocrat in control to certain se- 
lected lieutenants among the students not 
only is not self-government, but involves 
principles diametrically opposed. 

The self-government movement for boys 
215 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

and girls has grown until there are to-day 
eight Junior Republics in six different 
States of the Union, and a similar com- 
munity in England. There are, to our 
knowledge, over one hundred schools scat- 
tered throughout seventeen States of the 
Union completely organized on a self- 
governing basis, and a considerable num- 
ber in other countries. Some thirty of 
these are in Greater New York and the 
surrounding towns. With these the School 
Citizens' Committee keeps in constant and 
direct touch. There are doubtless many 
more schools on a self-governing basis of 
which we have no knowledge, 1 beside the 
very much greater number that have some 
phases or beginnings of self-government. 
It is probably safe to say that over one 
hundred thousand children throughout the 
schools and institutions of the country are 
to-day on a self-governing basis. There are 
a considerable number of child-caring insti- 
tutions organized wholly or in part along 
self-governing lines. Probably a majority 
of all the institutions and schools in the 

1 Any such would confer a favor by communicating with the 
School Citizens* Committee, 2 Wall Street, New Yorke 

216 



SELF-GOVERNMENT IN SCHOOLS 

country have to a greater or less extent, 
either consciously or unconsciously, been 
affected by the self-government movement. 
There is a number of playgrounds where 
self-government is combined with play. 
There is a large number of boys' and girls' 
clubs which are self-governing. And, finally, 
the Boy Scouts have many self-governing 
features in their world-wide movement, 
and will have more if General Sir Baden- 
Powell and some of the other leaders can 
bring it about. 1 

In order to get the testimony of those 
who know pupil self-government at first 
hand, last year the School Citizens 5 Com- 
mittee addressed a questionnaire to the 
public schools throughout the country 
known to have it in some form. The follow- 
ing conclusions are drawn from the answers 
of one hundred school principals and five 
thousand pupils. The first set of conclu- 
sions is drawn from the principals' an- 
swers and the second from the children's. 

1 We hope eventually to gather these very various and widely 
scattered forces into a League for the Advancement of Self-Gov- 
ernment, and thus to make the self-government movement more 
conscious of itself and its potency, and hence more effective. 



217 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

The Principals 9 Testimony 

1. Not one would think of giving up his 
or her self-government plan. 

2. It has developed a stronger school 
spirit. 

3. The public opinion it develops and 
organizes is of great value to the prin- 
cipal. 

4. It is the only effective way to teach 
civics. 

5. The boy who, under other conditions 
is "fresh" and unruly, is subdued and 
brought into line by his fellows. 

The Pupils 9 Testimony 

1. They catch the point of self -govern- 
ment — they understand its mean- 
ing and significance. 

2. The same questions provoke the same 
answers in portions of the country 
as different and widely separated as 
Colorado, New Hampshire, Alabama, 
and Kansas. 

3. It appeals to them because it gives 
them a chance to do things. 

4. Their only objections relate to the 
working-out of details. 

218 



SELF-GOVERNMENT IN SCHOOLS 

5. Their own Court is potent because 
it applies pupil standards and pupil 
punishments. 

6. That a constructive attitude of mind 
is cultivated is shown by the fact that 
nearly all the children offer definite 
and plausible suggestions for the im- 
provement of the self-government 
plan in their own schools. 

A college student who had been through 
a school where they had real self-govern- 
ment was once asked what good it had 
done him. After a moment's hesitation he 
replied, "I don't think I could ever be a 
4 dead one* after that!" One has but to 
consider the responsibility of the "dead 
ones" for the evils of our governments, 
particularly in great cities, to realize the 
significance of this remark. If we could 
eliminate the "dead ones" from our civic 
fife, we could handle the "bad ones" with 
comparative ease. 



CHAPTER X 

THE WORLD'S WORKERS 

When through necessity or responsibility 
the youth makes a right-angle turn in the 
way of life, leaving behind the path which 
was leading through irresponsibility into 
lawlessness, and comes up against the 
stern realities, he quickly becomes one of 
the world's workers. 

The world's workers may be divided into 
two groups : — 

(a) The better sort who do right for 
right's sake; 

(b) The other sort who do right for pol- 
icy's sake. 

Those of the second group uphold the 
law to whatever extent they believe it to 
be beneficial to their selfish interests. But 
both groups, however different their ethi- 
cal standards, unite as possessors of prop- 
erty in making and enforcing laws for its 
protection. 

220 



THE WORLD'S WORKERS 

All other adults may also be divided into 
two groups: — 

(a) Those who do wrong for policy's 
sake; 

(6) Those who do wrong for its own 
sake. 

The latter are a small group of dare- 
devils made up of freebooters, pirates, 
highway robbers, and desperadoes of all 
descriptions for whom Robin Hood in the 
Old World, and Jesse James in the New, 
stand as types. This group is not only 
small but continually growing smaller, be- 
cause in our complex and highly organized 
civilization it becomes increasingly diffi- 
cult for this type to survive. The very con- 
ditions which make increasingly difficult 
and dangerous the lot of the out-and-out 
bad man, favor his more dangerous compet- 
itor in evil — the individual who does 
wrong for policy's sake. 

Many of those who do wrong for policy's 
sake occasionally do right from the same 
motive, and conversely many of those who 
generally do right for policy's sake some- 
times do wrong from the same motives. 

Indeed, there is a large number of per- 
221 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

sons who according to circumstances skip 
back and forth over this line so frequently 
that they must be counted a middle or con- 
necting class between the two. Among 
these persons who do right or wrong, ac- 
cording as one or the other line of conduct 
best serves their purposes, are what Pro- 
fessor Edward Alsworth Ross, in his book, 
"Sin and Society/' calls "criminaloids." 
The "criminaloid" may endow schools and 
colleges, found hospitals, and serve on 
boards of trustees of all manner of religious 
and philanthropic institutions. Certainly 
no one can call such activities wrong. At 
the same time he may be, as Professor 
Ross says, "The director who speculates 
in the securities of his corporation, the 
banker who lends his depositors' money to 
himself under divers aliases, the railroad 
official who grants a secret rebate for his 
private graft, the builder who hires walk- 
ing-delegates to harass his rivals with 
causeless strikes, the labor leader who in- 
stigates a strike in order to be paid to call 
it off, the publisher who bribes his text- 
books into schools. . . . " 

A great number of these persons are at 
222 



THE WORLD'S WORKERS 

large merely because they have never been 
caught or because, with their high-priced 
legal advice, they have succeeded in obey- 
ing the letter of the law while breaking its 
spirit. They run great chances, and, with 
the exception of the great and powerful 
among them, are generally lodged behind 
prison bars eventually. 

While these persons who do right or 
wrong, as the case may be, for policy's 
sake, may be far from patriots or even de- 
sirable citizens, it is nevertheless of the ut- 
most importance to have them arrayed on 
the side of law and order. Where their self- 
ish interests are, there will they be. When 
they secure property they become advo- 
cates of the laws protecting property. De- 
prive them of the opportunity to acquire 
property and at once they would become 
open and lawless enemies of society. Were 
these borderland followers of expediency 
all open enemies of society the relatively 
few who do right for its own sake would 
be forced to abandon their peaceful pur- 
suits and band themselves into a standing 
army in order to preserve even a semblance 
of organized and civilized society. 

223 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

Some people may say that they prefer 
men who are bad out and out, rather than 
these crafty and shifty followers of ex- 
pediency. And this might well be so if the 
question of property did not enter in. The 
Rev. Mr. Carruthers says truly in his es- 
say, "The Pirate's Own Book/ 5 that while 
a pirate is doubtless a more interesting 
character than a pessimist, in choosing be- 
tween the two one would hardly hesitate 
to select the pessimist rather than the 
pirate as a neighbor. Of two men, - — one, 
genial, happy-go-lucky, witty, and com- 
panionable, but with a fatal habit of appro- 
priating that which does not belong to him; 
the other selfish, sullen, and unpleasant in 
appearance and manner, but strictly hon- 
est, — which would the average man select 
as a companion? If he had no property he 
would undoubtedly select the genial indi- 
vidual. If he had property he would as 
surely select the other as being, under the 
circumstances, the least undesirable. 

Oftentimes persons who act merely for 
selfish reasons of policy are found vigor- 
ously supporting good laws initiated by 
those who do right for its own sake. They 

224 



THE WORLD'S WORKERS 

do not support the laws because they are 
good, but merely because they will make 
their property more secure or in some man- 
ner be of selfish advantage to them. The 
more the right can be made to harmonize 
with the advantageous, the more will these 
people support the right. If the conditions 
are such that the rewards are on the side 
of right conduct, they will eagerly and 
gladly do right. If, on the other hand, cir- 
cumstances place the rewards on the side 
of wrong conduct, they will do wrong; not 
eagerly and gladly, to be sure, but cer- 
tainly. In short, they respond to their en- 
vironment as a barometer to the weather. 
To change them you must change their 
environment. 

From all of these groups in society 
emerge leaders. Their dominant character- 
istic from the worst to the best is strength 
of will. Adults just as youths may be 
grouped by their degree of will power 
from the great leaders with their indomit- 
able wills, down to flabby outcasts, who 
make up the pathetic camp followers in the 
march of civilization. While persons of 
only moderate or even weak will may 

225 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

achieve distinction or even fame in a given 
direction by reason of some highly devel- 
oped aptitude or talent, they never be- 
come leaders in any real sense. 1 Except in 
the cases of these persons with exception- 
ally developed special aptitudes or talents, 
the degree of will power is always a dom- 
inant and generally the determining factor 
in the success or failure of the individual. 
When youths make the right-angle turn 
in the way of life and become world's work- 
ers, they very quickly forget their irre- 
sponsible and carefree point of view. They 
soon become so engrossed in the cares and 
responsibilities of life that they forget en- 
tirely that only a few years before they 
were allied in thought, and occasionally 
even in deed, with the young lawbreakers 
whom now they so loudly denounce as 
dangerous criminals. Neither have they 
any charity toward those who have con- 
tinued along the way of lawlessness into 
mature years. There are others among the 
world's workers who have abundant char- 
ity toward the lawless, but as they too 
have forgotten their former irresponsible 

1 Genius is of course an exception to all rules. 
226 



THE WORLD'S WORKERS 

point of view it is apt to take a sentimental 
and even maudlin turn. It is too fre- 
quently a hysterical insistence upon kind- 
ness to all living creatures, whether they 
be dogs, cats, toads, snakes, or lawbreak- 
ers. For such kindness the lawbreaker has 
merely contempt, while of course he is 
quite ready to turn it to his own advan- 
tage. 

Both those who are charitable, and those 
who are not, tend to regard the lawless as 
quite another kind of beings from them- 
selves. They know what influences have 
kept them straight, and what have tempted 
them to step aside from the path of right. 
Do they, then, reason by analogy that the 
lawbreakers should be surrounded by the 
one set of influences and protected from 
the other? No, because they do not recog- 
nize that the lawless are beings like them- 
selves subject to the same hopes and fears, 
the same temptations and desires, aspira- 
tions and ambitions. The warden of one 
of our great prisons, in reply to a request 
of a visitor to see "the first-class crim- 
inals," said, "You've come to the wrong 
place to see them. These are the third-class 

227 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

bunglers in here. The first-class criminals 
are prosperous members of society who 
have never been caught and most of whom 
never will be." 

When some injury is done themselves or 
their property by the undisciplined social 
outcasts, the world's workers at once cry 
out, " The criminal needs discipline. We 
must devise a system for his reformation." 
A system is accordingly devised and put 
into operation by the law of the world's 
workers. It embodies inherited and tradi- 
tional conceptions, without regard to their 
own point of view before they took the 
right-angle turn in the way of life. This 
system is variously known as prison, re- 
formatory, reform school, and industrial 
school. Its ostensible purposes are in vary- 
ing order and degree: to protect society, 
to punish the lawbreaker, and to reform 
the individual. While, to be sure, the penal 
system in this country varies in different 
States from conditions verging upon medi- 
aeval barbarism to methods well inten- 
tioned and relatively enlightened, it may 
in general be said to have failed to accom- 
plish, to any considerable extent, any of its 

228 



THE WORLD'S WORKERS 

purposes except the infliction of punish- 
ment. 

For the maintenance of our prisons alone 
we are now paying $3,500,000 a day, or 
$1,000,095,000 a year. We spend as much 
annually on our prisons as the combined 
value of our total output of wheat and 
coal, estimating our wheat at $750,000,000 
and our coal at $350,000,000. Professor 
Bushnell, of Washington, estimates the 
annual cost of all our machinery for the 
suppression of crime at $6,000,000,000 — 
Dr. Frank Lydston at $5,000,000,000. So 
the authorities differ on a little detail like 
one billion dollars. What a price to pay — 
for what? For the suppression of crime? 
In the United States to-day there are four 
and one half times as many crimes to 
every million of the population as there 
were twenty years ago. 

It is common knowledge that the average 
prisoner comes out of prison a worse man 
than when he went in. In the great ma- 
jority of cases he is either broken in spirit, 
and hence useless to himself and society, or 
he is filled with a spirit of revenge and dan- 
gerous to society. With our prisons liber- 

229 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

ating thousands of these useless and dan- 
gerous persons weekly, we certainly cannot 
claim that our penal system is adequately 
protecting society. With the average con- 
vict coming out of prison worse than when 
he went in, still less can we claim that it is 
reforming the lawbreakers. If it is neither 
protecting society nor reforming the law- 
less, what is it doing? It is punishing the 
lawbreakers. That is, it is punishing such 
of the lawbreakers as are caught — those 
whom the warden, quoted, calls "the 
bunglers." And for this we are paying five 
or six billion dollars a year ! 

The ordinary penal institution largely 
fails in its purpose, because the system it- 
self is given preeminence over the individ- 
ual, for whose ostensible reformation it is 
devised. The life in a prison or reformatory 
is of necessity unnatural and undemocratic. 
Conformity to its demands not only does 
not fit an individual to meet the problems 
of actual life, but positively unfits him. For 
the model prisoner who mechanically fol- 
lows all the rules and regulations and goes 
through his daily routine like a machine, 
there is little hope when he comes again 

230 



THE WORLD'S WORKERS 

into real life. He will find awaiting him no 
rules and regulations accompanied by free 
board and lodging and a machine-like rou- 
tine. He must get out and hustle for a job 
under the most adverse conceivable condi- 
tions. This demands great initiative. What 
initiative he once had has atrophied in the 
prison atmosphere, where it was not only 
useless, but a positive detriment. For the 
refractory prisoner when he finally gets out 
there may be hope. He has kept his initia- 
tive in spite of the system. He still has the 
ability to make his way in the world and 
may still succeed if he can be given the 
desire to use it. 

Our penal system still rests chiefly upon 
fear. As President Eliot, of Harvard, once 
said, "Fear of punishment, whether in this 
world or the next, is a very ineffective mo- 
tive with adults." 

There has grown up, particularly of late 
years, a mawkish sentimentality regarding 
lawbreakers which is even more destruc- 
tive to their self-respect than the fear 
and hatred with which they are commonly 
surrounded. 

It is our contention that the only legiti- 
231 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

mate purposes of a penal system are, first, 
to protect society against the lawbreaker; 
and second, to reform the lawbreaker. In 
the isolated spots where these purposes 
have been made supreme or even dominant, 
success has followed. Judge Ben Lindsey's 
success is perhaps the most notable exam- 
ple. Where punishment and revenge is a 
purpose, either consciously or uncon- 
sciously, the two legitimate purposes, 
namely, the protection of society and the 
reform of the individual, are destroyed, 
and the result is the sordid and costly fail- 
ures with which the path of our penal sys- 
tem is strewn. 



CHAPTER XI 

CITIZENS REMADE 

As soon as lawbreakers are caught, tried, 
and convicted, they are shoved into the 
prison world where the factors of property 
and responsibility, so beneficial to mankind 
in general, are entirely withdrawn. Natur- 
ally persons who do right for its own sake, 
with the rare exception of zealots like John 
Brown, do not fall into the clutches of the 
law. As previously stated, the desperadoes 
who do wrong for its own sake are a small 
and decreasing class. In short, all except an 
almost negligible percentage of the prison 
world is made up of persons who do right 
or wrong for reasons of policy. Therefore, 
whatever motives these people may have 
had for doing right are promptly and com- 
pletely removed. Under an indeterminate 
sentence they may, indeed, behave them- 
selves in an exemplary manner according 
to the negative standards of prison virtue. 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

Why? Not infrequently that they may the 
sooner gain their freedom and continue their 
wrongdoing. In fact, the passionate desire 
for revenge upon an enemy outside is some- 
times the propelling motive for prison vir- 
tue. There is no chance to earn money for 
one's self or one's family, there is no chance 
for the exercise of the qualities of leader- 
ship, there is no chance for worth-while 
achievement either great or small, there is 
no legitimate opportunity to win the ad- 
miration of one's companions, and there is 
of course no opportunity to win fame, dis- 
tinction, or even respect. How many of 
even the best of people would continue to 
follow the right, with all these inducements 
withdrawn? Is not practically all incen- 
tive for really desiring the right, in distinc- 
tion from merely seeming to desire it, effec- 
tually removed? 

For the persons in this unnatural sub- 
merged world, society assumes entire re- 
sponsibility both for their support and their 
government. These wards of society, known 
as convicts, are designated by numbers — a 
fitting symbol of the disregard of their in- 
dividuality. They may be divided into the 

234 



CITIZENS REMADE 

following groups: First, those who in some 
moment of sharp temptation have violated 
the law which up to that time they had up- 
held. In this group are splendid people 
who may even have closely approached the 
doing of right for its own sake. In an evil 
moment they dropped into doing wrong 
for policy's sake, and were caught. Second, 
comes a large group who outside belonged 
to the class of those doing right for policy's 
sake with occasional detours into wrong- 
doing from the same motives. The essen- 
tial difference between these persons and 
those of their category outside is that they 
have been caught, while the others have 
not. They are apt to have more courage, 
self-respect, and real honesty than their un- 
caught colleagues, ^s soon as they are 
caught and convicted, however, these or- 
dinarily good and law-abiding individuals 
are branded by society as members of the 
criminal class and cast into the prison 
world. To be sure, they are called first 
offenders or accidental criminals, and as 
such are given certain privileges. But these 
privileges are artificial prison advantages 
which can in no way compensate them for 

235 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

the real advantages of which they have 
been deprived. The final and lowest group 
is composed of the lawless element who 
have done wrong for its own sake. This is, 
like the first or highest group, numerically 
and proportionately insignificant. 

Inside the prison as well as outside, indi- 
viduals may be classified according to their 
degree of will power. There are the weak- 
willed, those of moderate will, those of aver- 
age and those of strong will power. Those 
in this last group are natural leaders of their 
fellow men. Outside, they were leaders in 
commercial, political, or professional life; 
some were leaders in crime. Whether for 
good or ill, nevertheless they were leaders. 
Under prison conditions there is no legiti- 
mate outlet for the qualities of leadership. 
Hence, the men with these qualities find il- 
legitimate outlets and lead in acts of insub- 
ordination and in jail-breaking. They are 
thereupon classified as incorrigibles, hard- 
ened criminals, or some other terms suggest- 
ing depravity. In fact, many of the prison 
classifications, such as first offenders, sec- 
ond offenders, occasional offenders, and old 
offenders, will be found to be closely related 

236 



CITIZENS REMADE 

to the degree of will power possessed by the 
individuals designated. Obviously the char- 
acter-strengthening influences of property 
and responsibility, self-support and self- 
government, should not be withheld from 
the very individuals who most need them at 
the very time when they most need them. 
Why should not the principles already 
proved effective in the reformation of law- 
breaking youths be applied to lawbreaking 
adults? 

Let several thousand acres of land be 
surrounded by a wall or a stockade with a 
dead-line of sufficient distance running 
along inside. 1 Let the offenders against 
society be banished to live within this in- 
closure until they shall have become safe 
and useful members of society. Suppose, 
for instance, a man is arrested, tried and 
found guilty of some offense. With the ex- 
ception of murder, it matters not what the 
offense. Instead of sentencing him, as now, 
to pay a fine or serve a term in prison, the 
Judge orders him to go and live within this 
inclosure until such time as he can prove to 

1 Personally we believe that this wall would be found to be 
unnecessary. 

237 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

a Court of Rehabilitation l that he has be- 
come a safe and useful member of society. 
We agree with Mr. Roland B. Molineaux 
that to sentence offenders to definite terms 
of imprisonment is the height of absurdity. 
If the lawbreaker has actually reformed 
before the expiration of his term, it is un- 
just to him to keep him longer in confine- 
ment; if, on the other hand, he has not re- 
formed by the expiration of his term, it is 
unjust to society to liberate him. Suppose 
a man with scarlet fever were sent to a hos- 
pital for three weeks, and at the end of that 
time turned out with the fever at its 
height, merely because the period for 
which he was committed had expired. Or 
suppose he was sent for three years, and 
held for over two and one half years after 
his complete recovery, merely because his 
time had not expired. Of almost as great 
folly is society guilty in sentencing to defi- 
nite terms of confinement those whose acts 
indicate moral illness. 

When the man is brought within the 

1 We have taken the idea of the Court of Rehabilitation from 
an able paper by Roland B. Molineaux, published in Charities 
and the Commons, September 28, 1907. 



CITIZENS REMADE 

inclosure in compliance with the order of 
the Court, he will find himself in a town or 
village just like any other town or village 
except that it is surrounded by a stockade 
guarded by armed sentries. He and his 
fellows have the same liberty of action as 
the inhabitants of any town except that 
they may not leave until they can secure 
the permission of the Court of Rehabilita- 
tion. No matter how slight his offense he 
cannot go until he has proved to this Court 
that he is a desirable citizen. No matter 
how grave his offense he may not be held 
beyond such time. He finds the life within 
the inclosure in all essentials like the life 
outside. There are the same trades and 
callings, and above all, the same necessity 
of choosing between the alternatives — 
work or starve. The inhabitants dress and 
act like the citizens of any ordinary town 
and conduct their government in the same 
manner. He has not been allowed to bring 
a cent of money into the inclosure with him 
and he finds that he can secure food and 
lodging only by paying for it in the coin of 
the community. If there is any demand 
for such services, and if it was legitimate, 

239 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

he will naturally take up his outside occu- 
pation. For the matter of that, he may 
take it up even though illegitimate if his 
fellow citizens will let him. Presumably, 
however, they will not, for such an occupa- 
tion would make it more difficult for all of 
them to secure their liberty. In short, he 
finds himself in a community correspond- 
ing to a Junior Republic except that the 
citizens are all men over twenty-one, in- 
stead of boys and girls. 

Friends and relatives can visit the citi- 
zens of this town whenever they wish, pro- 
vided they are of good character. Their 
comings and goings must of course be 
closely scrutinized by a strong guard at 
entrances and exits. While every citizen 
must start life anew, without a cent to his 
name within the inclosure, he may keep in 
touch with business associates outside. In 
fact, he may even continue to direct his 
business outside, provided he does not 
personally derive any income from it until 
liberated. Just as in a Junior Republic only 
persons of sound mind and sound body 
would be eligible. A board of alienists and 
physicians would pass upon the eligibility of 

240 



CITIZENS REMADE 

all applicants sent by the courts. Those 
found to be physically unsound would be 
sent to hospitals, to be returned when cured. 
If incurable they would be sent to hospitals 
where they could be permanently cared for. 
Those of unsound mind would be sent to 
asylums for similar treatment. It would 
probably be necessary to keep doubtful 
mental cases under observation for long 
periods. The regulation that a patient as 
soon as cured must enter the inclosure in- 
stead of being set at liberty would effectu- 
ally prevent the feigning of maladies in 
order to escape confinement. 

When a member of this community felt 
that he had earned his freedom he would 
apply for liberation to the Court of Rehab- 
ilitation. Before this Court the burden of 
proof would rest entirely upon him. He 
would have to produce convincing evidence 
that he had reformed and had become a 
safe and useful member of society. Among 
other things he would have to show that he 
had worked hard and dealt fairly with his 
fellow citizens within the inclosure; that 
he had done his full share as a citizen, a 
neighbor, and a friend; that he had to the 

241 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

fullest extent possible made reparation to 
the person or persons outside whom he had 
injured by his crime; that he had, if mar- 
ried, contributed to the best of his ability 
to the support of his family, and, if single, 
that he had saved as much as possible to 
help in his reinstatement on release. He 
could call upon his fellows to corroborate 
his statements and the Court could, of 
course, cross-examine him and them. Since 
everything would depend upon his convinc- 
ing the Court that his character was rehab- 
ilitated, nothing would be so fatal to his 
chances as to be caught in a lie. If he 
failed to prove his case, he would simply go 
on as before and apply again when he felt 
he had additional evidence. If he succeeded 
in proving his case, he would be set at lib- 
erty with a certificate from the Court stat- 
ing that he had been reformed and had be- 
come honest, industrious, public-spirited, 
and, in short, a useful and desirable citizen. 
He would return at once to his rights and 
duties as a citizen, of which, indeed, he was 
never deprived; they were merely in abey- 
ance, so far as the outside world was con- 
cerned, during his banishment. 

242 . 



CITIZENS REMADE 

Needless to say there would be offenders 
against the laws of such a community just 
as there are outside. Such offenders would 
be arrested and tried by their fellows in 
their own Court, and if convicted sen- 
tenced to banishment into another similar 
adjoining community. There would be as 
many such communities as experience 
showed to be necessary. Suppose there 
were four, and suppose an offender com- 
mitted to the first were banished by his fel- 
lows to the second, and so on, until he had 
reached the fourth. There would be in each 
inclosure a guard-house for misdemeanants, 
where the inmates would be obliged to work 
without pay for the community. In each 
inclosure, except the last and the first, 
there would be a commission made up of 
citizens of that inclosure, to pass upon the 
fitness of applicants from the inclosure next 
below for reinstatement in theirs. For in- 
stance, the supposititious man banished 
successively from the first to the fourth 
may by hard work and good conduct be 
gradually reinstated by the commissions 
until he finds himself back in the first in- 
closure. And thence, only the Court of 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

Rehabilitation may release him into the 
outside world. 

For first-degree murderers there would 
be a similar inclosure in which they would 
be confined for life. The Governor's par- 
doning power would be abolished so that a 
life term might be one in fact as well as in 
name. In short, no person who entered 
these portals would ever again be seen by 
the outside world. If, however, any one so 
confined should subsequently be shown to 
be innocent, then and then only should he 
be released. So far as the world at large 
was concerned a person entering these 
gates would pass out of existence as abso- 
lutely as if he had died. His friends and 
relatives would, however, have the satisfac- 
tion of knowing that he was not dead, but 
working out his lifelong penance in a manly 
manner. In no other respect would this 
community differ from the others. The 
inhabitants would have the same rights of 
self-government and the same necessity 
for self-support. They would, in short, be 
men and citizens instead of things called 
convicts. Their earnings would go, in large 
part, to their own famiilies and the fam- 

244 



CITIZENS REMADE 

ilies of their victims. This would be obli- 
gatory. For second-degree murderers there 
would be still another inclosure of like na- 
ture. These persons would, like all others, 
except the first-degree murderers, have the 
right of applying to the Court of Rehabili- 
tation for release and reinstatement in so- 
ciety. In no other way could they secure 
their liberty. In considering their appeals 
the Court would naturally consider primar- 
ily the weaknesses of character which had 
led them to commit murder, and until or 
unless they showed every indication of 
having overcome those particular weak- 
nesses they would not release them, no 
matter how exemplary their conduct and 
character in other respects. If, for instance, 
a person had committed murder in a parox- 
ysm of anger, he would not be released un- 
til he had learned to control his temper, no 
matter in how many other ways he might 
have become a model citizen. In these 
communities for murderers they would 
deal with their own lawbreakers in the 
ordinary way. That is, they would have 
their own police, courts, and jails, just as 
have the Junior Republics. While there 

245 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

would, of course, be separate inclosures for 
women, wives and mothers, sisters and 
daughters would, except in the case of the 
first-degree murderers, be allowed to visit 
their husbands and sons, brothers and 
fathers. 

The inhabitants of these communities 
would be free to acquire by their labor any 
property except land. The land would all 
belong to the State. They could, however, 
lease tracts of land from the State for lim- 
ited periods. They would be free also to 
sell their produce or manufactured articles 
in the outside world as well as among them- 
selves, provided they did not sell below the 
prevailing market rates. It would, indeed, 
be difficult if not impossible for them to cut 
rates even without this prohibition, be- 
cause they would be subject to the same 
competitive conditions of production as 
any outside workers instead of being given 
free board and lodging, plant and tools, as 
are convict laborers to-day. The labor 
unions could not justly resent such compe- 
tition, as they now rightly oppose the un- 
fair competition of convict contract labor, 
because, in the first place, it would not be 

246 



CITIZENS REMADE 

unfair competition; and, in the second 
place, it would not be convict labor, but 
that of men who would be none the less 
citizens because confined within certain 
boundaries. 

Critics may say, what a fearful state of 
anarchy would there be in a community in- 
habited exclusively by lawbreakers! Were 
the conditions such as those in prisons this 
would undoubtedly be true. With a prop- 
erty basis there is no more likelihood of an- 
archy in such a community than in any 
other. If disturbances should break out, 
the authorities could call in police or troops 
from outside just as would the authorities 
of any town in similar trouble. Whatever 
their ethical standards, those possessing 
property inside the inclosure would have 
the same selfish motives for upholding law 
and order as have the property holders 
outside. A lawbreaker is just as quick to 
defend his person and his property as a per- 
son of the most exalted civic virtue. 

By means of such communities society 
would be permanently protected against 
the permanently dangerous and temporar- 
ily protected against the temporarily dan- 

247 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

gerous. At the same time the lawbreakers 
would be given the advantage of the great- 
est character-building agencies; namely, 
self-support and self-government. Conse- 
quently it is fair to assume that all those 
capable of reformation would ultimately 
be reformed. Of those incapable of reform- 
ation, society would be permanently rid. 
When a man is liberated from prison, it is 
commonly assumed that he is at least as 
bad if no worse than when he went in. 
Such being the case, it is naturally almost 
impossible for him to find employment. 
Unable to find honest work, he turns to dis- 
honest, is arrested, and sent back to prison. 
And so the vicious circle continues until 
as an habitual criminal he is periodically 
ground in and out of prison for the rest of 
his existence. This process means for the 
State a maximum of expense and danger 
and for the criminal a maximum of misery. 
Under the plan proposed, the lawbreaker 
would not only be reformed before being 
liberated, but he would have his certificate 
of reinstatement from the Court of Rehab- 
iliation which would be almost a legal guar- 
anty of his trustworthiness. While the old 

248 




I I 



LIVING ROOM, BOYS' COTTAGE 




DINING ROOM, GIRLS' COTTAGE 



CITIZENS REMADE 

prejudice would undoubtedly persist for 
some time, it is entirely conceivable that 
these certificates might eventually come to 
be of special advantage in securing employ- 
ment. The employers would know that the 
holders had learned to be industrious, hon- 
est, and as efficient as their capacities 
permitted. 

It is common knowledge that under 
present conditions many lawbreakers are 
never caught. Some one of repute in such 
matters has asserted that the proportion 
of the caught to the uncaught is as low as 
one in one hundred. However that may 
be, certainly many more lawbreakers elude 
the law than are caught in its toils. People 
know, when a man is sentenced to a prison 
term, that the chances are he will be ruined 
— ruined in purse, mind, body, and soul. 
Unless his crime is of a nature to arouse a 
fury of revenge few decent people are will- 
ing to aid the officers of the law in ac- 
complishing his ruin. The average good- 
natured, kind-hearted citizen is much more 
apt to help the hunted fugitive from jus- 
tice than his pursuers. Would not the aver- 
age citizen feel very differently if he knew 

249 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

that the lawbreaker when caught would be 
given every chance to develop the best 
there was in him; that he would be given 
every opportunity to mend his ways and 
return to society with higher aims and a 
strengthened character with which to fol- 
low them; that the door of Hope, instead 
of being shut in his face, would always 
stand open before him? Under such condi- 
tions the Law's representatives could rea- 
sonably count upon the cooperation of a 
large proportion of the respectable citizens 
who now wash their hands of what they re- 
gard as sordid and unpleasant business. 

Mr. George proposes to try this scheme 
on a small scale with a few so-called crim- 
inals just as soon as opportunity offers, and 
to stake his reputation upon its outcome. 
It does not involve a single principle which 
has not already been successfully applied 
to similar problems with persons differing 
in age only. The plan could be experiment- 
ally tried by very gradually raising the age 
limit in a Junior Republic, and then little 
by little eliminating all citizens below 
twenty-one and all girls. With two thirds 
of the crimes in the United States com- 

250 



CITIZENS REMADE 

mitted by youths under twenty-four, we 
see that the criminal problem is, in any 
case, largely a problem of youth. 

However, we need not rely entirely upon 
the analogy between these proposed com- 
munities and Junior Republics. Already 
have the principles involved been success- 
fully tried to a considerable degree with 
adults. One of the most picturesque and 
convincing experiments which involved 
these principles occurred in the extreme 
northern part of the Chinese Empire dur- 
ing the years 1883 to 1886. Few people 
know that almost a generation ago there 
was a Republic in China — the first real 
Republic that ever existed on the contin- 
ent of Asia. The rise and fall of this little 
Republic is described by George Kennan 
in the "Atlantic Monthly" for October, 
1897. The story is briefly this: In 1883 a 
Tongus hunter discovered gold in a wild 
and lonely Manchurian valley. By the 
spring of the next year gold-seekers were 
pouring into the valley at the rate of one 
hundred and fifty a day. By the fall of 
1884 there were, says Mr. Kennan, "at 
least three thousand miners; and a more 

251 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

motley, heterogenous, and lawless horde of 
vagabonds and adventurers never invaded 
the Chinese Empire." In enumerating 
them he concludes, "and finally, more than 
one thousand escaped convicts — thieves, 
burglars, highwaymen, and murderers — 
from the silver-mines of Nerchinsk and the 
gold-mines of Kara." 

Since this community was beyond the 
jurisdiction of Russia and unknown even 
to the nearest administrative centre in 
China, it had at first no government what- 
ever. Naturally robbery, murder, and 
atrocities of every kind ran riot. The only 
law was the law of brute force. Finally, as 
Mr. Kennan says, " The logic of events 
had convinced both honest men and crim- 
inals that unless they secured life and prop- 
erty within the limits of the camp, they 
were all likely to starve to death in the 
course of the winter." Accordingly all the 
inhabitants met together in a "skhod," a 
Slavonic variety of the New England town- 
meeting, adopted a penal code and elected 
a committee of safety to govern the camp, 
enforce the law and act as the executive 
arm of the skhod. In this organization the 

252 



CITIZENS REMADE 

convicts took an active part and were as 
such represented on the committee. While 
this committee greatly promoted the pros- 
perity and increased the population of the 
"Chinese Calif ornia," it finally proved too 
weak to enforce law and order and was 
superseded by another and stronger govern- 
ment. The skhod called for the establish- 
ment of this stronger government, divided 
the territory into five districts, and then 
adopted a federal constitution based 
roughly upon the American Constitution. 
They provided for a President with large 
powers and a Council made up of two re- 
presentatives from each district to act col- 
lectively in a legislative capacity and indi- 
vidually, within their own districts, in a 
judicial and executive capacity. For their 
President they unanimously elected the 
best-educated, most honest, and most 
widely respected man in the community. 
Every citizen signed the Constitution and 
took an oath of allegiance to the Govern- 
ment. 

To continue to quote from Mr. Kennan's 
account: 

"Before the first of February, 1885, the 
253 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

triumph of the honest and law-abiding 
class in the Amur California was virtually 
complete. The petty crimes which had so 
long harassed and disquieted the camp 
became less and less frequent; the suprem- 
acy of the law was everywhere recognized 
with respect or fear; the experiment of 
popular self-government was admitted to 
be successful. . . . 

"Intelligent and dispassionate Russians 
who had just come from the Amur Cali- 
fornia told me, when I met them at Chita, 
Nerchinsk, and Stretinsk, in 1885, that life 
and property were absolutely safer in the 
Chinese Republic than in any part of the 
Russian Empire. * Why/ said one of them, 
• you may leave a heap of merchandise un- 
guarded all night in the streets; nobody 
will touch it!'" 

In commenting upon the success of the 
experiment Mr. Kennan remarks, "Here 
was a population as heterogeneous, as un- 
educated, and as lawless as could be found 
anywhere in the Russian Empire. Nearly 
a third of it consisted of actual criminals, 
of the worst class, from the Siberian mines 
and penal settlements, and fully a quarter 

254 



CITIZENS REMADE 

of the non-criminal remainder were igno- 
rant Asiatics, belonging to a half -dozen dif- 
ferent tribes and nationalities/' 

This plucky and prosperous little Re- 
public naturally enough was not allowed 
to live long by the autocratic governments 
of the two great empires which surrounded 
it. The Russian officials starved out the 
greater part of these self-governing "free 
adventurers 55 by cutting off their food 
supply, while the Chinese officials sent a 
regiment of cavalry who butchered those 
who remained, including the women and 
children and the sick in the hospital, and 
then burned the town. 

Mr. Kennan cites this Chinese Republic 
as an example of the unsuspected self- 
governing ability of the Siberian people. 
We cite it as an example of the unsuspected 
self-governing ability of all peoples of 
whatever race, nationality, color, creed, 
class, or previous moral record. 

At the instance of Governor-General 
Cameron Forbes, of the Philippine Islands, 
the Junior Republic principles — those 
underlying self-support and self-govern- 
ment — have to an appreciable extent 

255 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

been introduced into the penal methods 
of the Islands. As a result of their ap- 
plication in the Iwahig Penal Colony on 
the Island of Palawan, a tract of three hun- 
dred and sixty square miles, the one thou- 
sand convict inhabitants are controlled by 
five American officers and eight native em- 
ployees, themselves ex-convicts. Eighty 
per cent of these convicts were convicted 
of such crimes as brigandage, robbery, 
homicide, and murder. The colony has 
gradually become self-supporting. No fire- 
arms are permitted on the reservation, nor 
are there guards, jails, or prisons. Never- 
theless all is as peaceful and orderly as in 
any well-regulated village. 

But it is no longer necessary to go so far 
afield as Manchuria or the Philippines to 
find examples of convicts rising to the 
emergency when responsibility is placed 
upon them. The sheriff of a county in 
Vermont is allowing his prisoners to go out 
to work by the day on neighboring farms. 
They pay the county for board and lodg- 
ing an amount equal to about two thirds 
of their wages. They go back and forth 
to their work without guard or anything to 

256 



CITIZENS REMADE 

distinguish them from ordinary workers. 
For them the jail is practically a board- 
ing-house — a boarding-house where they 
are under supervision and which they 
may not leave until a certain time has 
elapsed. 

In the States of Colorado, Oregon, and 
Washington, the more trustworthy of the 
convicts are allowed to live in unguarded 
camps while working on the roads. Before 
going into these camps they swear on their 
word of honor that they will not attempt 
to escape. In Colorado, where they have 
been tested longest, less than one per cent 
have violated their pledges by successful 
escape. They are rewarded for good work 
and trustworthiness by commutation of 
their sentences. 

In Ohio and several other States, experi- 
ments of a somewhat similar nature are 
being tried. Whether these particular ex- 
periments succeed or fail, they nevertheless 
express an irresistible impulse of the 
times — an impulse which cannot itself fail 
because it expresses fundamental truths 
which have been making slow but constant 
headway against ignorance and selfishness 

257 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

for the past two thousand years. This im- 
pulse is a dynamic force bound eventually 
to sweep aside the static forces which stand 
across its path. 



CHAPTER XII 

A SQUARE DEAL FOR DEMOCRACY 

Some people claim that democracy in 
America has failed; others that it has failed 
in spots, as, for instance, in the boss-ridden 
cities. Still others claim that it has not 
emerged from its experimental period; that 
the ultimate issue is still in the balance. 
But all these critics alike assume that it 
has, at any rate, been fully and fairly tried. 
Whether or not democracy in America has 
failed in whole or in part, we do not pro- 
pose to discuss. We do contend, however, 
that the assumption that it has been fully 
and fairly tested is not warranted by the 
facts, and that until it has been so tested it 
is unfair to call it a failure either wholly 
or in part. 

We maintain that it has not had a fair 
test, because never on any large scale has 
the youth of America been practically 
trained for the duties and privileges of 
democratic citizenship. The home, the 

259 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

church, and the school are the traditional 
institutions for the training of citizens. In 
the earlier and more homogeneous days of 
the Republic, the home and the church 
performed relatively well their share of the 
work of fitting for citizenship the rising 
generations. Since the Civil War these two 
great agencies have become steadily and 
increasingly unequal to the task. As for 
the church, one need only compare the 
total population of the nation with the 
total church membership to see that, what- 
ever its fitness for the task, the church now 
reaches, directly, at any rate, an insigni- 
ficant proportion of the population. What- 
ever its potential ability, the church to-day 
no longer has even opportunity to exert a 
wide and vital influence upon the training 
of the rising generation. 

As for the home, surely no one can be 
so fatuously sanguine as to claim that the 
immigrant home, whatever its willingness 
and good intentions, is equipped for the 
training of American citizens. A certain 
immigrant woman in New York City, the 
mother of a large family, was haled to 
court several times and fined for throwing 

260 



A SQUARE DEAL FOR DEMOCRACY 

ashes out into the street. She could not 
speak or understand English and never 
learned for what she was fined, until finally 
the ash regulations were explained to her 
in her own tongue by a sympathetic neigh- 
bor. It appeared that in the little Rouman- 
ian village whence she had come, the chief 
magistrate had requested all the inhabit- 
ants to help in the road-making by throw- 
ing their ashes into the street. She had 
assumed that the Mayor of New York 
wanted her to do likewise. 

The homes at the opposite pole, socially, 
are apt to be in their way, nearly if not 
fully as ill-equipped for the purpose. What 
Mr. Dooley has called "the homes of lux- 
ury and alimony" surely cannot be recom- 
mended. And even in the blue-blooded old 
families the training is sometimes little 
better than nothing. A prominent New 
Yorker of an aristocratic old family says 
that shortly before his twenty-first birth- 
day he asked his father to tell him some- 
thing about the government of the city and 
what would be expected of him when he 
became a voter. His father replied with a 
cynical smile, "My son, as a gentleman 

261 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

and the son of a gentleman, all you need 
know about the government of your city 
is that you must bribe the ashman in order 
to get him to do his duty i" In short, there 
are to-day relatively few homes where the 
children receive from their parents such 
training as will fit them for assuming the 
responsibilities of democratic citizenship. 
Of necessity the great bulk of the burden 
is now thrown upon the schools and other 
institutions for the teaching and the care 
of the young. 

Until the last decade practically all such 
schools and institutions were managed in 
an autocratic manner ill-designed to incul- 
cate democratic ideals and habits of life. 
Even now relatively few are organized upon 
a really democratic basis, while the ma- 
jority still remain petty monarchies in 
which the children are the subjects, with 
no part except to obey when they must, and 
evade when they can, autocratic authority 
arbitrarily imposed from above. One obvi- 
ous stumbling-block in the spread of dem- 
ocratic training throughout the schools of 
the United States is the fact that the 
school systems themselves are highly auto- 

262 



A SQUARE DEAL FOR DEMOCRACY 

cratic. Teachers who themselves have no 
voice in the affairs which most vitally con- 
cern them have an obvious if not a good 
excuse for declining to give the pupils a 
voice in the matters of daily concern 
to them. Curiously enough, our public 
schools, which are supported by our tax- 
payers and which should obviously be the 
fountain heads of democratic training, 
have been organized after the autocratic 
manner of our industrial world instead of 
after the democratic manner of our politi- 
cal institutions. The public-school teachers 
of America are beginning to rise in organ- 
ized revolt against this autocratic system 
to which they have too long submitted. 
Let us hope that they will be sufficiently 
consistent not to deny to the pupils what 
they themselves demand ! 

It is our contention that not until all the 
agencies for the making or the remaking 
of citizens have been placed upon a demo- 
cratic basis will Americans be adequately 
prepared to take their places as sovereign 
citizens of a free and self-governing coun- 
try. The fullest possible opportunity for 
apprenticeship in citizenship should be 

263 



CITIZENS MADE AND REMADE 

given before the full responsibilities of adult 
citizenship fall upon the individual. This 
apprenticeship may or may not pay par- 
ticular regard to training in the forms 
and procedure of democratic government. 
Whether it does or not is a detail. On the 
other hand, it must regard the develop- 
ment of self-expression in each individual, 
together with the development of social 
expression in all the individuals. This is 
fundamental. Finally, all such agencies 
should conform to the great and greatly 
neglected truth that people, whether old 
or young, can only learn to do by doing; 
can only learn to live by living. These 
fundamental principles should be applied 
not only to all agencies for the training of 
children, — for the making of citizens* 
— but to all those likewise for the reform- 
ation of adults — for the remaking of citi- 
zens. Prisons such as now exist should 
ultimately be entirely abolished, and for 
them should be substituted reformatory 
republics. 

When all schools and all other agencies 
for the training of children shall have been 
placed upon a democratic, upon a self- 

264 



A SQUARE DEAL FOR DEMOCRACY 

governing basis, and when all institutions 
for the reformation of misfit adults shall 
have been placed upon a like basis, and 
when there shall have been established 
Junior Republics in every state of the 
Union, then, and not till then, will there 
be furnished training for democratic cit- 
izenship sufficiently vital and sufficiently 
widespread to provide a full and fair test 
for our democracy. Then and not till then 
may the critics of American democracy 
fairly pass judgment upon its failure or 
success. We believe that when this time 
comes there will be raised up a citizenship 
such as the world never before has seen. 
Those of us who believe in democracy 
should remember that upon its success or 
failure in America largely depends its suc- 
cess or failure throughout the world. 



THE END 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



